Kidambi Srikanth and HS Prannoy didn’t want to risk injuries or aggravate health issues ahead of the All England championship and hence decided to skip the senior nationals in Guwahati. On the other hand, Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu continued their high intensity training routine in the middle of the tournament with an eye on the season’s first BWF World Tour Super 1000 in Birmingham that starts on Wednesday.
In the last few years, a couple of Indian players have always been considered contenders for the coveted title but apart from Nehwal’s run to the final in 2015, no one has really come close to ending India’s 18-year wait for another All England title and thus joining Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand on the champions list.
The situation is no different as the 2019 All England Championship kicks off at Arena Birmingham with the Indian contingent having to trudge through a tricky draw and court conditions that very few of them enjoy.
The court conditions at All England are generally pretty slow and the likes of Srikanth, Sai Praneeth and Prannoy haven’t really managed to excel while even the legendary Morten Frost admitted during an interaction with the media in Guwahati that the conditions make Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi the favourite along with Tai Tzu Ying in the women’s draw.
”When you look at the All England, it’s a slow hall, you have to work really hard. It’s definitely in favour of a player of the style of Yamaguchi,” he had said.
Yamaguchi had got one over Sindhu in the semi-finals of the last edition and though they are not in the same half this year, the Indian is drawn to face either her 2017 World championship conqueror Nozomi Okuhara or Ratchanok Intanon in the last four stage.
But even before the Indian stars could think that far, they need to negotiate a few tricky opponents in earlier part of the draw.
Sindhu kicks off her campaign against Sung Ji Hyun and the Korean’s retrieving abilities make her a handy challenger in such conditions. The Indian hasn’t had many easy encounters against the 27-year-old world number 10 and their head-to-head record of 8-6 in the former’s favour only shows that the opening clash itself wasn’t going to be an easy outing.
Nehwal has relatively comfortable opener against Scotland’s Kristy Gilmour, having successfully handled her attacking flair in their six previous encounters. But the 28-year-old Indian was pushed to three games in their last two encounters on the slower courts in Glasgow and Gold Coast and it would be interesting to see how the Indonesia Masters champion tackles the conditions this time around.
The 2015 edition finallist is then likely to face off against Chinese newcomer Cai Yanyan before a possible quarterfinal against top seed and two-time defending champion Tai Tzu Ying.
In the men’s singles category, Srikanth will obviously start favourite against Brice Leverdez of France. But the Indian won’t forget that his opponent loves slow court conditions and he had to save a match point against the Frenchman in the decider at this very stage in the last edition of the tournament.
The seventh seed then may face Asian Games gold medallist Jonatan Christie in the second round and would have to find a way to beat world champion Kenta Momota, who is chasing his first title here, to even start thinking of the podium finish.
Among the other Indians in fray, Sameer Verma starts his campaign against former world number one Viktor Axelsen while Sai Praneeth and Prannoy will face off in the very first round. The winner of their match could face Indonesian eighth seed Anthony Ginting with a possible quarterfinal encounter against third seed Chou Tien Chen.
While Ginting may be a fan of faster courts, Chou Tien Chen knows how to play long drawn matches, something both Sai Praneeth and Prannoy don’t really enjoy.
It also needs to be seen how Prannoy is feeling physically given that the 26-year-old is scheduled to travel to USA after the tournament because of health issues.
In the doubles events, Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy are pitted against seventh seeds Shiho Tanaka and Koharu Yonemoto while Sikki and her mixed doubles partner Pranaav Chopra would first look to ensure a second round clash against second seeds Wang Yilyu and Huang Dongping of China before looking any further.
Former national champion Manu Atri and B Sumeeth Reddy are India’s lone entry in the men’s doubles category in the absence of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and a quarterfinal appearance would be a realistic target for them when they kick off their campaign against unseeded Chinese combination of Xuanyi Ou and Xiangyu Ren