BWF World Championships 2017: PV Sindhu seeded fourth, Srikanth Kidambi eighth

The list of seeded players for the prestigious BWF World Championships, scheduled to be held from August 21-27 at Glasgow, Scotland, has been released. Out of the four men who qualified for the global event, three have been seeded with the Indonesia Open and Australian Open winner Srikanth Kidambi placed at eighth.

Ajay Jayaram has been seeded 13th while the Singapore Open and Thailand Open champion B Sai Praneeth too squeezed in among the top 16 and received the penultimate seeding of 15th.

The 28th ranked Sameer Verma, who got a last-minute entry after a few withdrawals, is the only Indian men’s singles player without a seeding.

The seeding list has been done according to the world rankings on August 3, 2017.

Son Wan Ho is the top seed with the legendary Malaysian Lee Chong Wei and the Danish star Viktor Axelsen rounding off the top three.

Reigning Olympic champion Chen Long is fifth while the iconic Lin Dan is seventh, right ahead of Srikanth.

Danish superstar Jan O Jorgensen is one of the biggest names missing from the championships. The World No. 10 is recuperating from a series of injuries affecting his foot, toes and heel, as announced by him on his Instagram page.

Also read: BWF Rankings: Big jump for Rahul Yadav Chittaboina, Manu Attri-Sumeeth Reddy too rise

Saina bumped up to 12th

In women’s singles, India Open and Syed Modi International winner PV Sindhu has got the fourth seeding in the absence of the World No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying. The in-form Chinese Taipei ace is skipping this tournament in favour of the World University Games (Universiade) to be held in Taipei city for the first time.

Akane Yamaguchi, the runner-up at the Australian Open Superseries, has thus been top seeded ahead of Sung Ji Hyun and the defending champion Carolina Marin.

World No. 16 Saina Nehwal, the runner-up in 2015, is seeded 12th. Former champion Ratchanok Intanon is eighth.

Chopra/Reddy receive seeding

The only Indian doubles team to get a seeding is also the pair which currently has the best ranking out of all Indian teams. The mixed doubles combine of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy - ranked 20th - is seeded 15th.

They began the 2017 season on a grand note by winning the Syed Modi International Grand Prix Gold title in January.

Also read: Kidambi Srikanth has hit top gear and just wants to keep winning

Edited by Souvik Roy Chowdhury