The two-time Commonwealth Games Champion Saina Nehwal is set to miss the national badminton selection trials for the upcoming Asian Games due to fitness issues. The Badminton Association of India (BAI) will be conducting the trial from May 4 to 7 at Jwala Gutta Academy of Excellence in Telangana to pick the team for the prestigious tournament, which will be held in Hangzhou, China from September 23 to October 8.
Saina Nehwal to skip the trials
”Saina Nehwal will not be participating as she has some fitness issues. Also, the men’s pair of Kushal Raj and Prakash Raj has also withdrawn from the trials,” BAI secretary Sanjay Mishra told PTI.
”However, the rest of the players who were invited for the trials will be competing this week for the spots.”
Saina had last competed at the Orleans Masters. She has battling injuries for quite some time and she had also skipped the trials for Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships in January. Furthermore, she had missed the trials for the Commonwealth Games last year.
BAI had directly selected double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu (World No. 11), HS Prannoy (world no. 9), men’s pairing of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy (World No. 6) and women’s combination of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand (world no. 19) for the Asian Games ”based on their placing in the BWF Top 20 ranking list as on April 18”.
The national federation had come out with a list of players for the Asian Games selection trials on April 22, setting April 28 as the deadline for confirmation.
World championships silver and bronze medallists Kidambi Srikanth (World No. 23) and Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya Sen (World No. 24), Orleans Masters Super 300 winner Priyanshu Rajawat, national champion Mithun Manjunath and Tokyo Olympian B Sai Praneeth are among the nine men’s singles players, who will have to fight it out in the trials.
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