NEW DELHI: Double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu and World Championships bronze winner Lakshya Sen will lead a 14-member Indian team for the Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championship to be held in Qingdao, China from February 11-16.
India had clinched a bronze medal in the last edition of the competition in Dubai in 2023.
“The national selectors have given importance to the world rankings and current form of the players while selecting the squad that will have HS Prannoy and Malvika Bansod as the second men’s and women’s singles players respectively,” the Badminton Association of India said in a release.
The strong Indian team will also have star doubles players Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty. The women's doubles pairing could be either Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly or Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto.
Tanisha will also pair up with Dhruv Kapila in mixed doubles while Sathish Kumar K and Adya Variyath will be the second combination.
BAI secretary general Sanjay Mishra said, “We did well by winning the bronze medal two years ago, but the target this year is to reach the finals, and then anything is possible, and we will go all out.”
Indian squad:
Men’s: Lakshya Sen, HS Prannoy, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Chirag Shetty, Dhruv Kapila, MR Arjun, Sathish Kumar K.
Women’s: PV Sindhu, Malvika Bansod, Gayatri Gopichand, Treesa Jolly, Ashwini Ponnappa, Tanisha Crasto, Adya Variyath.