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All eyes will be on top-seed Gayatri Gopichand as the 16 year-old aims to qualify directly for the Junior Asian Badminton Championship to be held in China. In the boys singles category, Priyanshu Rajawat is the favourite to lift the title although he has some stern challengers to compete with.

Ahead of India’s campaign at the Sudirman Cup mixed team badminton championship, chief national coach Pullela Gopichand has mentioned that the draw for the Indians is “very tough”. However, he has further added that the Indian shuttlers have trained hard and their target is to bag a medal.

India’s run at Li-ning Denmark Challenge came to an end as the only remaining singles player, Subhankar Dey eventually lost to hot local favourite Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus. The men’s duo of Chirag Shetty and Swastiksairaj Rankireddy went down against England’s Ben Lane and Sean Vendy.

India started the second round of the Li-ning Denmark Challenge on a mixed not with Subhankar Dey beating Japan’s Minoru Koga while Lakshya Sen and Sourabh Verma bowing out. India’s men’s pairing of Sawtiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty beat Scottish pair to advance into the quarterfinals.

India’s promising men’s pair of Swastiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty came together after six months to win the 34th Brazilian Challenge title. The duo was supposed to play in New Zealand prior to this but a mix up there meant they had to travel to Brazil for their first tournament this year.