Thomas and Uber Cup 2024: PV Sindhu and women's double's teams pull out; Satwik-Chirag to lead men's squad

After the draws for the Thomas and Uber Cup 2024 were revealed, everyone expected the teams to be the same as last year. However, when the Badminton Association of India (BAI) unveiled the squad, major names were missing from the women's team.

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For the Uber Cup, Indian top women's shuttler PV Sindhu, and the two doubles pairs, namely Tanisha Crasto-Ashwini Ponnappa and Gayatri Gopichand-Treesa Jolly, opted to miss as they wanted to concentrate on the upcoming Paris Olympics 2024. As for the Thomas Cup, India has named a strong squad including HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen, as well as men's doubles world No. 1 Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty.

The squad was decided after an online meeting of the selection committee comprising Chief National Coach Pullela Gopichand, former Indian veterans U. Vimal Kumar, Jwala Gutta, Manjusha Kanwar, Partho Ganguly, and Mallika Baruah Sarma.

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The BAI press release stated, "Sindhu informed the selectors that due to back-to-back tournaments leading up to the Olympics, she and her team have decided to skip the Uber Cup to prepare for the Olympics. Top doubles pairs also cited similar reasons and, since it is not a full-strength team, they also pulled out. The selectors then decided to go ahead with young players who have performed well recently at the National Championships."

Regarding the men's team, "The committee felt we needed to have one additional player in the singles category, while in doubles, they have picked the top two pairs, and Sai Pratheek is selected as an additional doubles player after consultation with Mathias Boe (Danish doubles coach) just in case somebody is not fully fit or needs recovery," said Sanjay Mishra, the General Secretary of BAI.

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Two years ago, the Indian men's team made history in Thailand by defeating Indonesia 3-0 in the final, securing its inaugural Thomas Cup title. This year, the competition will be held in Chengdu, China from April 27 to May 5.

Thomas Cup squad: (Singles) HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen, Kidambi Srikanth, Priyanshu Rajawat and Kiran George; (Doubles) Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Chirag Shetty, MR Arjun, Dhruv Kapila and Sai Pratheek

Uber Cup squad: (Singles) Anmol Kharb, Tanvi Sharma, Ashmita Chaliha and Isharani Baruah; (Doubles) Shruti Mishra, Priya Konjengbam, Simran Singhi and Ritika Thaker.