PV Sindhu's strategy for Tokyo Olympics

A strong medal contender at the Tokyo Games ace Indian shuttler PV Sindhu on Friday admitted that she has got a favourable draw but insisted that she has to be on top of her game since no match will be easy at the Olympic levelReigning world champion and Rio Games silver medallist Sindhu has been drawn with Hong Kongrsquos Cheung Ngan Yi ranked 34th and Israelrsquos Ksenia Polikarpova ranked 58th in Group J of the womenrsquos singles eventldquoItrsquos a good draw in the group stage Hong Kong girl plays well and itrsquos going to be a good matchrdquo Sindhu who is World No 7 said in a release issued by Badminton Association of India BAIlsquoNot going to be easyrsquoldquoEverybody is going to be in top form I hope I do well Every match is important so I will take match by match This is Olympic and it is not going to be easy each point is very importantrdquo said the sixth seedSindhu has an allwin record against her group stage opponents Ngan Yi and Polikarpova in the five and two encounters played so far against them respectivelyIn menrsquos singles World No 15 B Sai Praneeth has been placed in Group D alongside World No 29 Mark Caljouw of Netherlands and World No 47 Israeli shuttler Misha Zilberman ldquoItrsquos a mixed draw not so tough and not so good I have to be 100 per cent to win all matches and it will be a good match for merdquo World Championships bronze medallist Praneeth saidWorld No 10 menrsquos doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy however are expected to face a stiff challenge in the league stageTough for ChiragSatwikThe duo have been placed in the Group A alongside topseed and World No 1 Indonesian duo of Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo and Marcus Fernaldi Gideon who also finished at the top in the Race to Tokyo standing and World No 3 Chinese Taipei pair of Lee Yang and Wang ChiLinEnglandrsquos Ben Lane and Sean Vendy are the fourth pair placed in Group AldquoItrsquos a very even group which means even if you lose a match you are still in the game because nobody knows what will happenrdquo Indiarsquos Danish doubles coach Mathias Boe saidldquoWersquoll focus on preparing as much as possible in the last few weeks We will attack on court and hopefully we get good results I am positive itrsquos a good challenge for usrdquoIn the singles category 42 players are divided into 14 groups with each group consisting of three players Top player from each group will qualify for the knockout stageWhile in the doubles category 16 pairs are divided into four groups with top two pairs from each group advancing to the Last8 stageBadminton matches will kickstart from July 24Also ReadWe want to work under Rahul Dravid and pick his brain Bhuvneshwar KumarThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever