BWF World Championships: PV Sindhu in the hunt to retain title - watch live in India
Kidambi Srikanth, Lakshya Sen and Chirag Shetty - Satwiksairaj Rankireddy are some of the other Indian badminton players who will be in action. Watch live!
Reigning world champion PV Sindhu will be one of the favourites to win consecutive crowns at the BWF World Championships 2021 which starts on Sunday at Huelva, Spain.
Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu became India’s first badminton world champion in 2019 when she beat old rival Nozomi Okuhara of Japan in the final.
This time around, the Indian badminton queen is seeded sixth and is in good form, having made the final of the BWF World Tour Finals last week, where she fell to An Seyoung of South Korea. PV Sindhu has received a bye in the opening round of the world championships.
One of PV Sindhu’s chief rivals will be fellow Olympic silver-medallist and top seed Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei, who the Indian could potentially face in the quarter-finals. Tai Tzu Ying will be playing for the first time since Tokyo 2020, where she won silver.
Second seed Akane Yamaguchi of Japan and An Seyoung are expected to be some of the top challengers.
Three-time world champion and Olympic gold medallist Carolina Marin has pulled out of the badminton world championships as she nurses an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, which also forced her to miss Tokyo 2020.
Nozomi Okuhara, the 2017 world champion, has also withdrawn from the tournament.
In the men’s singles, Kidambi Srikanth and debutant Lakshya Sen are India’s top bets. B Sai Praneeth, a bronze-medallist in 2019, has been drawn in the same half as his two other compatriots.
Defending champion Kento Momota of Japan has pulled out due to a back injury.
Olympians Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy will be among the top contenders in the men’s doubles.
The Indian duo had pulled out midway from the BWF World Tour Finals last week after Satwik felt some pain in his knee and so are well-rested.
No Indonesian players will take part in the BWF World Championships as they pulled out over concerns about COVID-19.
Indian squad for BWF World Championships 2021
Men’s singles - Lakshya Sen, Kidambi Srikanth, B Sai Praneeth, HS Prannoy
Women’s singles - PV Sindhu
Men’s doubles - Chirag Shetty/Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Manu Attri/B Sumeeth Reddy, Arun George/Sanyam Shukla, MR Arjun/Dhruv Kapila
Women’s doubles - Pooja Dandu/Sanjana Santosh, Maneesha K/Rutuparna Panda, Ashwini Ponnappa/N Sikki Reddy
Mixed doubles - Saurabh Sharma/Anoushka Parikh, MR Arjun/Maneesha K, Venkat Prasad/Juhi Dewangan, Utkarsh Arora/Karishma Wadkar
Where to watch the BWF World Championships 2021 live in India?
The BWF World Championships 2021 will be telecast live on the Star Sports 2, Star Sports 2 HD and Star Sports 3 TV channels in India.
Live streaming of the badminton world championships 2021 will be available on the Disney+Hotstar website and app.