Pantawane, Ajay Jayaram to compete in Vietnam Open Badminton tournament

Some of the top Indian Badminton players including Ajay Jayaram, Arundhati Pantawane, R.M.V Gurusaidutt, Sourabh Verma etc. will be competing in the Vietnam Open Badminton Tournament which will be held in Ho Chih Minh city of Vietnam. The main draw of the tournament will start from 21st Aug and will end on 26th Aug, although the top Indian Shuttlers including Saina Nehwal, Parupalli Kashyap and P.V. Sindhu will not be playing in this tournament. Also, there will be no Chinese player in the tournament but still several other top shuttlers of the world will be giving their best to win this $50,000 prize money Grand Prix Tournament.

Arundhati Pantawane, after a gap of nearly four months will once again start her international campaign with this tournament. Arundhati will face a qualifier in the first round but the journey gets tough from the second round. She will meet seventh seed Belaetrix Manuputi in the second round. The Indonesian is ranked 40th in the world. The winner of Arundhati and Balaetrix will likely face fourth seed and world No. 34 Sapsiree Taerattanachai in the quarterfinals.

In the men’s singles category, world No. 29 and 3rd seeded Indian Shuttler Ajay Jayaram will be up against the World No. 128 Alrie Dharma of Indonesia in the first round. The 7th seed of the Tournament and world No. 40 Sourabh Verma will face a much lower ranked Malaysian player in the first round. 10th seed R.M.V. Gurusaidutt will play Iskandar Zulkarnain of Malaysia in the opening round. Anand Pawar, who is the world no 56 and 13th seed of the tournament will lock horns with the World No. 277 player Tzu Wei Wang of Taipei. Other Indian players who will be competing in the men’s singles category are HS Prannoy, Arvind Bhatt, Mohit Kamat and Anup Sridhar.

In the Women’s Singles category apart from Arundhati Pantawane, 19 year old Tanvi Lad and 21 year old P.C. Thulasi will be leading the Indian contingent. Tanvi Lad, the world No. 139, will face 6th seed and world No. 38 Maria Febe Kusumastuti of Indonesia in the first round. P.C Thulasi will be facing a lower ranked player from Hong Kong in the opening Match.

In the men’s doubles category, the Indian pair of Akshay Dewalkar and Pranaav Chopra, who are the 48th ranked pair in the world, will be up against the 88th ranked pair from Malaysia in the first round. There will be no Indian participation in the Women’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles category in the tournament.