As though the news of newly-crowned India Open champions Lakshya Sen and the men’s duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty pulling out of the $150,000 Syed Modi International badminton tournament was not disappointing enough, K. Srikanth, Saina Nehwal and Ashwini Ponnappa joined the long list of withdrawals late on Monday.
After a long managers’ meeting in Lucknow on the eve of the event, it came to light that P.V. Sindhu was the only top seed left in the draw across five events.
