Sindhu, Sameer top seeds for badminton Senior Nationals

Guwahati, Feb 11 (IANS) Rio silver medallist P.V.Sindhu and former national champion Sameer Verma were on Monday marked as the top seeds of the women and men's singles, respectively, as the 83rd Senior National Badminton Championships 2018-19 gets underway here on Tuesday.

The top eight singles players will be placed directly in the pre-quarterfinals. Similarly, the top four teams in the doubles will start their campaign from the quarters.

The BWF World Rankings as on January 18 is the major criterion for the seedings. All the top 50 shuttlers have got direct entries and the Badminton Association of India (BAI) rankings have been considered for players who have filled up the empty slots.

PSPB will be led by the top three seeds in men's singles -- 2015 champion Sameer Verma, 2014 winner Sai Praneeth and 2012 winner Parupalli Kashyap.

Subhankar Dey of the Railways is the fourth seed, UP's Ansal Yadav fifth seed, AAI's Chirag Sen sixth seed, with Uttarakhand's Bodhit Joshi and Haryana's Kartik Jindal rounding off the men's singles seedings.

Andhra Pradesh's P.V. Sindhu, champion in 2011 and 2013 as well as the runner-up in the last edition, is the top seed in women's singles. Defending champion Saina Nehwal will be the only seed representing PSPB as she eyes a fourth Nationals title.

AAI's Shriyanshi Pardeshi is the third seed, followed by Ashmita Chaliha of Assam, Kanika Kanwal and Anura Prabhudesai, both of the Railways. Sai Uttejitha Rao Chukka belonging to Andhra is the seventh seed and AAI's Aakarshi Kashyap eighth.

Arjun MR and Shlok Ramchandran have received the top billing in men's doubles and are followed by Anjan Buragohain-Ranjan Buragohain, Krishna Prasad Garaga-Dhruv Kapila and Prakash Raj-Vaibhaav.

Meghana Jakkampudi and Poorvisha S Ram are the women's doubles top seeds and Ashna Roy-Karishma Wadkar the second. The pairs of Aparna Balan-Sruthi KP and Agna Anto-Sneha Santhilal are the third and the fourth seeds, respectively.

The mixed doubles draw is headed by the World No. 46 combine of Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg. Saurabh Sharma-Anoushka Parikh, Dhruv Kapila-Meghana Jakkampudi and Vighnesh Devlekar-Harika V are the next three seeds.