Badminton News: Kidambi Srikanth and Ashmita Chaliha won the men’s singles and women’s singles respectively in the Badminton Association of India (BAI) Trials for the Asian Games on Sunday.

2021 World Championships silver medalist Srikanth and Chaliha stamped their authority as they went unbeaten in their six matches during the four-day trial.

Srikanth, who leads Group A with three wins, beat Siddhanth Gupta 21-13 21-16 before claiming a 21-15, 21-14 win over Lakshya Sen in the second leg of trials on Sunday.

The former world number one also beat national champion Mithun Manjunath 22-24 21-13 21-14 on Saturday.

While Srikanth dominated Stage 2, Lakshya finished second in the standings 1-4, with his loss to 1st being the only blemish in the net record.

The Commonwealth Games champion recorded four wins in seeded Group B. Lakshya beat Manjunath 21-17 21-8 on Sunday before losing to Srikanth. He beat Gupta 21-17 21-11 in his first leg 2 game on Saturday.

With two losses and a win, Manjunath finished third at 1-4 in Stage 2.

In women’s singles, Chaliha and Anupama Upadhyaya took the top two places, followed by Malvika Bansod in round 2, while Unnati Hooda lost all three matches to finish fourth.

Depending on the format, nine men’s singles players and eight women’s singles players have taken part in the trials for each of the three places, while there are four entries each in men’s doubles and mixed doubles and three in women’s doubles.

Singles players split into two groups in Stage 1, with the top two players from each group going to Stage 2.

The four players then compete in a league format and the results from stage 2 will be taken into account for the final standings.

Tags: kidambi srikanth, Ashmita Chaliha, Lakshya Sen, Asian Games 2023