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India’s top shuttlers including PV Sindhu, Lakshya Sen, HS Prannoy and men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have withdrawn from the upcoming BWF Japan Open, scheduled to commence on August 24. The Badminton World Federation (BWF) on Tuesday confirmed that defending champion Axelsen, fresh from winning his second Olympic Games gold medal, will be among the star attractions in the tournament amid massive pull outs from the tournament that will be first major badminton event after the conclusion of Paris Olympics on Sunday.
Axelsen is one of three defending champions who have entered the tournament – the others are women’s doubles duo Kim So Yeong/Kong Hee Yong and mixed doubles pair Yuta Watanabe/Arisa Higashino.
The other two defending champions: An Se Young and Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin – who also won the Olympic gold recently – will skip the Japan Open.
Lakshya came agonisingly close to winning the bronze medal for India in the Paris Olympics but he came down fighting against Axelsen to miss out the podium finish in the debut quadrennial event.
Apart from the Indian shuttlers, the other prominent withdrawls include Olympic champions Zheng Si Wei/Huang Ya Qiong, Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik, Chen Yu Fei, and Apriyani Rahayu/Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti.
While there have been a number of high-profile withdrawals, the field in all categories has plenty of depth. Shi Yu Qi, Jonatan Christie, Anders Antonsen, Kodai Naraoka and Kunlavut Vitidsarn in men’s singles, and Tai Tzu Ying, Akane Yamaguchi, Wang Zhi Yi and Gregoria Mariska Tunjung in women’s singles are expected to be seen in action.
