After a fine show by Indian shuttlers at the Denmark Open last week, the French Open 2018 is turning out to be another happy hunting ground for the shuttle stars from the country. Five Indian players and pairs have reached the quarter-finals of this Super 750 tournament, which makes Day 4 of the French Open 2018 very exciting for Indian fans.
Saina Nehwal beat former world champion Nozomi Okuhara for the second week in a row. But now the road gets rockier for the former World No. 1 as she meets the current World No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying again in a repeat of their Denmark Open final clash just five days back.
Nehwal managed to take a game off the irrepressible Chinese Taipei star in that match. It will be interesting to see if she can repeat that effort in Paris as well.
Third seed PV Sindhu is gunning to make a deep run this week following a first-round exit last week in Denmark. So far, she has been pretty impressive and has played her freely-flowing natural game, without a lot of hassle. But now she faces a stern test in the form of World No. 7 He Bingjiao, who leads Sindhu 6-5 in their head-to-head meetings.
For the defending men's singles champion Kidambi Srikanth, Kento Momota is up next once more. The Japanese has stopped the Indian in all four of their showdowns this year. Suffice to say, this is not a match-up that the Indian enjoys, especially when Momota has looked nearly invincible all year.
The doubles section has presented a highly enthralling affair for we have an all-Indian quarter-final clash, something that does not happen often in a tournament of such a high level. One between the pairs of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty and Manu Attri-Sumeeth Reddy is guaranteed to go through to the semi-finals.
While Rankireddy and Shetty reached the last-eight of this tournament last year too and have the experience, national champions Attri and Reddy have been playing some of their best badminton for the past couple of months. This could very well go down to the wire.
Here’s the complete schedule of Indian contingent on October 26, 2018:
Men's singles
(5) Kidambi Srikanth vs (1) Kento Momota at approx 11pm IST
Women's singles
Saina Nehwal vs (1) Tai Tzu Ying at approx 9pm IST
(3) PV Sindhu vs (7) He Bingjiao at approx 12.30am IST on October 27
Men's doubles
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty vs Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy at approx 9pm IST
Here's everything you need to know about how to follow the French Open
Tournament name: Yonex French Open 2018
Location: Paris, France
Category: Super 750
Date: Friday, October 26, 2018
Round: Quarter-finals
Broadcast: No live telecast on October 26, as per Star Sports schedule
Livestream: Hotstar.com
Live updates: On Sportskeeda