Indian male shuttlers got off to a stellar start on the opening day of the 2019 BWF World Championships at Basel, Switzerland on Monday. Three of the four male shuttlers progresses to round 2 of the men's singles event . While Kidambi Srikanth, HS Prannoy and B Sai Praneeth moved into the second round, Sameer Verma was ousted at the opening hurdle by Kean Yew 21-15, 15-21 10-21 in 62 minutes.


In the women's section, PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal were handed byes in round 1 due to their seeding in the tournament. They shall begin their respective campaigns on Wednesday.

Day 2 of the Championships will witness Indians in action across different disciplines. Besides the singles, the Indian doubles pair shall also be in action with Ashwini Ponnappa and Sikki Reddy taking on 17th ranked pair take on Chang Ching Hui and Yang Ching Tun from Chinese Taipei.

Men's Singles 

In the men's singles, all eyes will be on HS Prannoy's encounter with 5-time World Champion Lin Dan. It will be a stern test for the Indian shuttler against his formidable and more experiences Chinese opponent, who has achieved almost every title in international badminton. However, the Indian has beaten Dan twice in their previous meeting and the overall head to head between the two stands as 2-2.

India's top-ranked men's singles shuttler Kidambi Srikanth who was stretched to the limits in his opening round win against unseeded Irish shuttler Nhat Nguyen, will lock horns with unseeded Misha Zilberman of Israel. B Sai Praneeth will be up against an experienced customer in Korean shuttler Lee Dong Keun, the former world No 16.

Men's Doubles 

In the absence of Satwiksairaj and Chirag Shetty, the men's doubles challenge will be spearheaded by Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy who take on the French pair of Thom Gicquel and Ronan Labar.

Women's Doubles

Indian women’s doubles pair of Pooja Dandu and Sanjana Santosh, ranked 46, starts their campaign against Hsu Ya Ching and Hu Ling Fan of Chinese Taipei.