Asan (South Korea), Aug 3 (IANS) Fresh from winning her maiden BWF World Tour title, teenage sensation Tanvi Sharma will lead India’s campaign alongside former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth at the Korea Masters 2026 badminton tournament, which gets underway in Asan on Tuesday.
Having won the Taipei Open title on Sunday, the 17-year-old is going to South Korea in top form, thus becoming the fourth Indian woman to win a BWF Super 300 or higher title after Saina Nehwal, P.V. Sindhu and Devika Sihag, by beating Nguyen Thuy Linh of Vietnam in the final.
Since P.V. Sindhu, the two-time Olympic medallist, is taking a break and Unnati Hooda is not attending the tournament, Tanvi, who is third-seeded, will be the highest-ranked Indian player in the women’s singles section. Anmol Kharb, Malvika Bansod, Ashmita Chaliha, Aakarshi Kashyap, Rakshitha Sree Santhosh Ramraj, Isharani Baruah, Shriyanshi Valishetty, Tanya Hemanth and Mansi Singh will also be taking part.
Kidambi Srikanth, the third seed, is making his return to competitive play for the first time since his first-round loss at the Canada Open in July.
Earlier in the season at the US Open, the former world No. 1 had a remarkable performance, beating Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia, who won a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics, and Yudai Okimoto from Japan, before losing in the final to Su Li Yang from Chinese Taipei.
Kiran George, Tharun Mannepalli, Mithun Manjunath, Rounak Chouhan and Saneeth Dayanand will also be taking part in the men’s singles event, while S. Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian and Tushar Suveer will start off in the qualifying rounds.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will, however, be missing from the Indian team at the Asian Games as Satwik is still recovering from the shoulder injury he received at the Indonesia Open in June.
World No. 77 pair Bhargav Ram Arigela and Viswa Tej Gobburu will lead India’s men’s doubles effort. Priya Konjengbam and Shruti Mishra will lead the women’s doubles team.
India will also send three mixed doubles teams. These are Ishaan Bhatnagar and Shruti Mishra, Dhruv Rawat and Maneesha K, and Sathwik Reddy Kanapuram and Radhika Sharma.
The BWF Super 300 event takes place from 4 to 9 August and will be available for live streaming in India on the BWF TV YouTube channel. However, there will be no live television broadcast of the tournament in India.
–IANS
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