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HomeSportsBadmintonAll England C'ship: Sindhu, Saina aim to break 18-year-old jinx

All England C’ship: Sindhu, Saina aim to break 18-year-old jinx

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sindhu sainaA challenging draw stands in the way but India’s top shuttlers PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal will nonetheless fancy their chances of ending a nearly two-decade old title jinx at the All England Championship starting on Wednesday.

It was Sindhu and Saina’s mentor and current chief national coach P Gopichand, who was the last Indian to win the championship back in 2001.

Only the top 32 in the Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings qualify for the tournament and out of them, only three Indians have been seeded — the third being Kidambi Srikanth (seeded seventh) in the men’s event.

Fifth-seeded Olympic and world championship silver-medallist Sindhu will square off against former world no 2 Sung Ji Hyun of South Korea at the USD one million event.

London Olympics bronze-medallist Saina, seeded eighth, will start her campaign against Scotland’s Kristy Gilmour.

The star shuttlers have had contrasting results against their first-round opponents.

While Saina enjoys a 6-0 overall record against Gilmour, Sindhu has been troubled by Sung Ji but leads 8-6 in their previous 14 encounters.

Sung Ji defeated Sindhu twice in three meetings last year and if the Indian can put it past the Korean, she will run into either Russian Evgeniya Kosetskaya or Hong Kong’s Cheung Ngan Yi in the second round.

A favourable result will then put Sindhu against third-seeded Chinese youngster, Chen Yufei in the quarterfinals.

The Indian had lost to Chen at the 2018 China Open and will be wary of the Chinese despite enjoying a 4-3 head-to-head record.

“Each round will be comparatively tough. Each point is important to me. I am playing Sung Ji Hyun in the first round and it would be important for me to focus from the first round,” said the 23-year-old, who had reached the semifinals in the last edition.

While Sindhu has been in red-hot form last season, claiming silver medals at all major events, former world no. 1 Saina remains the only Indian to come close to winning the prestigious title, finishing runners-up in 2015.

 

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