PV Sindhu and Sameer Verma, the two Indians participating at the year-ending Badminton World Tour Finals in Guangzhou, got a tough draw in their respective singles event on Monday.

PV Sindhu was draw in the “group of death” along side defending champion Akane Yamaguchi, Tai Tzu Ying and Beiwen Zhang while Sameer Verma is in the same group as Kento Momota, Tommy Sugiarto and Kantaphon Wangcharoen.

The draw took place on Monday at Guangzhou, China where the tournament will be held. The top two players or pairs from each group will qualify for the semi-finals, for which a knockout draw will be conducted.

Sindhu will have a challenge on her hand to make it to the last four as she had lost to all three players in her Group A in the last year. However, she has beaten Japan’s Yamaguchi four times despite losing to her at the All England Championship. She is yet to beat Chinese Taipei’s Tai Tzu but has gotten the better of USA’s Zhang in 2018 after losing the Indian Open final.

Sindhu, despite making tournament finals regularly, has not been able to win a title in 2018 and this will be a final shot at finishing on top of the podium before the new season begins.

Verma, who became the unexpected Indian representation in men’s singles when he won the Syed Modi International last month, finds himself in the less lethal of the two groups. But he will still have the imposing Momota to contend with. The Japanese star has been in scorching form this year, winning the World Championships and the Asia Championships.

The men’s singles Group A is loaded with top seed Chou Tien Chen, All England champion Shi Yuqi, Son Wan Ho, and Anthony Ginting.

Other groups

Men’s Doubles

Group A

Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo (Indonesia)

Han Chengkai/Zhou Haodong (China)

Li Junhui/Liu Yuchen (China)

Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen (Denmark)

Group B

Chen Hung Ling/Wang Chi-Lin (Chinese Taipei)

Liao Min Chun/Su Ching Heng (Chinese Taipei)

Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan (Indonesia)

Hiroyuki Endo/Yuta Watanabe (Japan)

Women’s Doubles

Group A

Misaki Matsutomo/Ayaka Takahashi (Japan)

Greysia Polii/Apriyani Rahayu (Indonesia)

Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan (China)

Du Yue/Li Yinhui (China)

Group B

Mayu Matsumoto/Wakana Nagahara (Japan)

Jongkolphan Kititharakul/Rawinda Prajongjai (Thailand)

Lee So Hee/Shin Seung Chan (Korea)

Gabriela Stoeva/Stefani Stoeva (Bulgaria)

Mixed Doubles

Group A

Zheng Siwei/Huang Yaqiong (China)

Dechapol Puavaranukroh/Sapsiree Taerattanachai (Thailand)

Goh Soon Huat/Shevon Jemie Lai (Malaysia)

Marcus Ellis/Lauren Smith (England)

Group B

Yuta Watanabe/Arisa Higashino (Japan)

Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying (Malaysia)

Hafiz Faizal/Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja (Indonesia)

Wang Yilyu/Huang Dongping (China)