Tokyo: India’s reigning world badminton champion and Rio Olympics silver medallist, PV Sindhu, and compatriot B Sai Praneeth hit the training facilities in Tokyo early on Monday for their first practice session ahead of the Olympic Games, which start on July 23.
Having reached Tokyo on Sunday along with the first batch of the contingent, Sindhu, who had been training at the Gacchibowli stadium in Hyderabad with coach Park Park Tae-sang, is the favourite to win the gold medal, to add to the silver she won five years ago.
Seeded sixth, Sindhu will open her campaign in Group J on July 25 with the match against Ksenia Polikarpova of Israel. Hong Kong’s world number 34 Cheung Ngan Yi is the third player in the group from which one player will qualify for the next round. If she gets past the first round, she is likely to face World No. 12 Mia Blichfeldt.
Praneeth, the 13th seed, first hit the gymnasium in the Games Village for a session before joining Sindhu at the training courts. Praneeth is in Group D in the men’s singles draw with Mark Caljouw of the Netherlands and Misha Zilberman of Israel as his opponents.
Meanwhile, the table tennis team also got into the action with Achanta Sharath Kamal and G Sathiyan having their first training session on Monday morning.
Medallists at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, Sathiyan and Kamal will be participating in the men’s singles competition. Kamal will partner Manika Batra in the mixed doubles event.
