India’s badminton stars gear up for Japan Open 2025 challenge

NEW DELHI: Indian shuttlers P V Sindhu and Lakshya Sen, along with men’s doubles pair of Chirag Shetty-Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, will be seen in action in the upcoming Japan Open 2025 badminton tournament which will start from Tuesday, July 15.

Sindhu, Lakshya and the Sat-Chi duo were last seen at the Indonesia Open in early June. All three skipped the subsequent US Open and Canada Open, as per Olympics.com.

Sindhu, a two-time Olympic medallist, has had a challenging 2025 BWF World Tour season. The double Olympic medallist’s best showing on the BWF World Tour this year came at the India Open in January, where she reached the quarter-finals. Since then, she endured four consecutive first-round exits before logging successive Round of 16 finishes at the Singapore and Indonesia Opens.

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Lakshya, who finished fourth at the Olympics in Paris 2024, has also struggled for consistency with five first-round exits. His best finish this year is a quarter-final run at the All England Open. The 23-year-old Indian badminton player was forced to retire at the Singapore Open in June with a back injury.

Satwiksairaj and Chirag, the reigning Asian Games champions, have reached three semi-finals on the BWF Tour this year and made the quarter-finals at the Indonesia Open. However, they are still searching for their first title of the season.

Notably, US Open champion Ayush Shetty and former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth, finalist at the Malaysia Masters in May, are not part of India’s Japan Open line-up. Meanwhile, there are no Indian entries in the mixed doubles draw.

Japan Open 2025: India badminton squad:
Men’s singles: Lakshya Sen
Women’s singles: P V Sindhu, Unnati Hooda, Anupama Upadhyaya, Rakshitha Ramraj
Men’s doubles: Chirag Shetty-Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Hariharan Amsakarunan-Ruban Kumar Rethinasabapathi
Women’s doubles: Rutaparna Panda-Swetaparna Panda, Kavipriya Selvam-Simran Singhi. (ANI)