Badminton News: Saina Nehwal & Sameer Verma to regain India's challenge at 2019 Chinese Taipei Open

Saina Nehwal will lead India's challenge in Chinese Taipei Open 2019, a BWF World Tour Super 300 event which will be played between September 3 and September 8 in Taiwan, Chinese Taipei. The big names have opted out of the tournament in order to prepare for the upcoming China Open Super 1000 event. Saina Nehwal will look to get some much-needed match practice before China Open Super 1000 event. Saina is top seeded in women's singles. Saina hasn't had a great season so far. At the beginning of the year, she won the Indonesia Masters 500 event after Carolina Marin had to retire in the final due to injury. But since then, she has not been able to make it past the quarter-finals of any tournament she played. She will be facing Korea's rising star An Se Young in the first round. An has defeated players like Li Xuerui and has won three tournaments this year. If Saina manages to overcome the opening hurdles, she is likely to play veteran Sung Ji Hyun in the semi-finals. In men's singles, three Indian players will be trying their chances to win the coveted trophy. Seeded number three, Sameer Verma will be opening his campaign against the Malaysian Daren Liew. Sameer was the player to watch in 2018, but since the beginning of 2019, not only has his ranking slipped but his results too have gone down drastically. His brother Sourabh Verma will be opening his campaign against Kazumasa Sakai of Japan.He is likely to meet top seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei in the second round. HS Prannoy who is ranked 27th in the world will be opening his title hunt against World No. 29 Wang Tzu Wei of Chinese Taipei. Prannoy leads in their head-to-head by 3-2.