Srikanth, Saina to lead India in Thomas, Uber Cups

Saina and Srikanth will lead the Indian Uber and Thomas Cup teams respectively

New Delhi, May 7 (IANS) Reigning national badminton champion Kidambi Srikanth and Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal will lead the Indian challenge in the May 18-25 Thomas and Uber Cups, respectively, to be held at the Siri Fort Sports Complex here.

The Badminton Association of India (BAI) Wednesday selected a 10-member contingent each for both competitions comprising a combination of five singles and doubles players each.

The Thomas (World Men’s Team Championship) and Uber Cups (Women’s) ties will have three singles and two doubles matches.

Meanwhile, five-time World Champion Lin Dan of China and current World No.1 Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia will lead the parade of star players in the tournament.

Two-time Olympic champion ‘Super’ Dan has not been active on the international circuit but was named in the Chinese squad as their fourth singles player. This mean that the current World No.58 can only play the third singles match.

As per the rules, the singles players are nominated to play according to their world rankings and hence the last ranked player in the team has to play the third singles.

The other singles members in China include World No.2 Chen Long, World No.6 Pengyu Du and World No.16 Houwei Tian, who has been picked ahead of World No.7 Zhengming Wang as the defending champions look to rewrite history by becoming the first team to win the Thomas Cup crown for the sixth successive time.

In the Uber Cup, China have named a formidable team with Olympic champion and World No.1 Li Xuerui leading them along with World No.2 Shixian Wang and World No.3 Yihan Wang.

Apart from having a top-class Chinese feast, badminton lovers will also get to watch the likes of Thai World Champion Ratchanok Intanon and World No.5 & 6 Ji Hyun Sung and Yeon Ju Bae from South Korea.

Indian squads:

Men’s for Thomas Cup: Kidambi Srikanth, Parupalli Kashyap, R.M.V. Gurusaidutt, Sourabh Varma, B. Sai Praneeth, Pranaav Jerry Chopra, Akshay Dewalkar, Manu Attri, Arun Vishnu and B. Sumeeth Reddy.

Women’s for Uber Cup: Saina Nehwal, P.V. Sindhu, Arundhati Pantawane, Tanvi Laad, P.C. Thulasi, Jwala Gutta, Ashwini Ponnappa, Aparna Balan, N. Sikki Reddy and Pradnya Gadre.