Paris Olympics: Prannoy, PV Sindhu get easy draws; Lakshya faces Christie

Indian shuttlers had a decent draw for the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics as the Badminton World Federation (BWF) announced the draws on Friday.

The draws were conducted for every event apart from the men's doubles following a Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) hearing.

Decent Draw for the Indian contingent

In men's singles, India has two representatives in HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen. While HS Prannoy went as the 13th-seeded in the draw, Lakshya was unseeded.

HS Prannoy was drawn in Group K along with Le Duc Path of Vietnam and Fabian Roth of Germany. It is a fairly easy group for Prannoy who might face Lakshya Sen in the round of 16.

Lakshya Sen has a challenging Group L with third-seeded Jonatan Christie of Indonesia being in the same group as him. Another player in the group is five-time Olympian Kevin Cordon of Guatemala who reached the semi-finals of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Cordon lost to eventual gold medalist Viktor Axelsen in the semis and then lost to Anthony Ginting in the bronze medal match.

The fourth player of the group is Julien Carraggi of Belgium who is regular feature on the BWF World Tour and is expected to give fight to the rest three.

Double Olympic medalist PV Sindhu was drawn in Group M with Kristan Kubba of Estonia and Fatimah Abdul Razzaq of Maldives. She is tenth-seed in the category.

It is an easy group draw for Sindhu and she is expected to face He Bing Jao of China in the round of 16 and Chen Yu Fei in the quarter-finals as probable opponents.

Sindhu has avoided the likes of An Se Young and Tai Tzu Ying till the semi-final.

In women's doubles, Indian pair Ashwini Ponnappa/Tanisha Crasto will feature in Group C alongside fourth-seeded Japanese pair Nami Matsuyama and Chiharu Shida.

Other pairs in the group are world number 7 Korean pair Kim So Yeong and Kong Hee Yong and Australian pair Setyana Mapasa and Angela Yu.

The Indian pair will be the dark horse from Group C and will have to get better of their higher-ranked opponents.

The date for the draw of men's doubles is yet to be determined where Indian pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty enter the draw as the third seed.