Indian badminton players Sameer Verma, Kiran George and Ashmita Chaliha have advanced to the main draw of the Thailand Open Super 500 tournament by defeating their opponents in the qualifying round. Sameer, a former world No. 11 who recently won the Slovenia Open, defeated Malaysia's Yiho Seng Joi 21-12, 21-17. Earlier, in two rounds, he got a walkover against Indonesia's Christian Adinata and Spain's Luis Enrique.
The 28-year-old Sameer, who won three titles in 2018, will face Magnus Johane of Denmark in the first round of the main draw. Kiran, who won the BA Year Odisha Open, defeated compatriot Kartikeya Gulshan Kumar 21-14, 21-18 and then defeated Korea's Jeon Hyok 21-10, 21-14. She will now face Chinese Shi Yuqi. In the women's singles, Ashmita Chaliha defeated Unnati Hooda 21-16, 13-21, 21-19. After which she defeated Estonia's Kristin Kuba 21-19, 21-11. Assam's Ashmita will face India's Malvika Bansod in the main draw. India's Olympian B Sai Praneeth and national champion Mithun Manjunath have made it directly to the main draw. She will face France's Christo Popov and Thailand's second seed Kunlawat respectively.
India's star doubles players Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have reached number four in the world badminton rankings. The Indian pair, who won a Commonwealth Games gold medal and the French Open Super 750 tournament last year, have won the Swiss Open Super 300 title this season. He has 74,651 points in 12 tournaments. HS Prannoy, who won the Malaysia Masters last week , has improved one place to eighth in the world. Apart from this, Kidambi Srikanth has also returned to the top 20 with an improvement of three places. Lakshya Sen has dropped one place to 23rd position. In the women's singles, PV Sindhu remained at the 13th spot, while Trisha Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand remained at the 15th position in the women's doubles.
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