The Badminton Association of India on Thursday named the Indian men’s and women’s squads for the Thomas and Uber Cups with women’s singles shuttler PV Sindhu and the women’s doubles pairs of Gayatri Gopichand-Treesa Jolly and Tanisha Crasto-Ashwini Ponnappa opting out of the tournament.
While India have fielded a strong men’s squad for the tournament which will be held in Chengdu, China from April 27 to May 5, the women’s squad is a relatively inexperienced one.
Defending Thomas Cup champions India have named five men’s singles players with HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen, Kidambi Srikanth and Priyanshu Rajawat being joined by Kiran George. The world No 1 pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will lead the doubles charge along with MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila. Sai Pratheek has been named as the back-up doubles player to the two first-choice combinations.
A final call on the squad will be taken following a meeting of the selection committee which comprises of coach Pulella Gopichand, U Vimal Kumar, Jwala Gutta, Manjusha Kanwar, Partho Ganguly and Mallika Baruah Sarma.
Sindhu, Gayatri-Treesa and Crasto-Ponnappa opted out of competing in the Uber Cup to focus on their preparation for the upcoming Paris Olympics.
In their absence, the women’s team will comprise of singles shuttlers Anmol Kharb, Tanvi Sharma, Ashmita Chaliha, Isharani Baruah and the doubles teams of Shruti Mishra-Priya Konjengbam and Simran Singhi-Ritika Thaker