Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu could face each other in the semi-finals of the Badminton World Championship to be held in Basel from August 19-25 after a women’s singles re-draw placed them in the same half.
“It was determined a player had mistakenly been included in the women’s singles entry list and the BWF has subsequently adjusted the entry list and conducted a re-draw,” the Badminton World Federation announced on its website.
Though BWF did not give any explanation on what was the mistake and who the player was, TV2 Sports reported that the world body was forced to conduct a redraw as Mauritius’ Kate Foo Kune had been suspended over a doping charge in July and was still part of the initial draw.
After the re-draw, Sindhu and Nehwal may have been drawn in the same half but there was no change in their possible quarter-final opponents.
Sindhu in all likelyhood will play either second seed Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei or China’s Cai Yan Yan while Nehwal is scheduled to meet China’s Chen Yufei in the last eight round.
Both the players continue to have a bye in the opening round with Sindhu likely to face Beiwen Zhang of USA in the third round while Nehwal could take on Mia Blichfeldt of Denmark at the same stage.
The draws for other four categories remain unchanged.