If Sindhu and Saina win their respective second round matches, they will face each other in the quarter-finals.
The 2021 All England Open will be the second tournament this year to offer ranking points to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, after the Swiss Open.
With the coronavirus pandemic halting all sport activities, India's former chief badminton coach Vimal Kumar on Tuesday urged the government to allow the Olympic-bound athletes to continue their training after conducting the required tests. Following the respective directives of the Talengana and Karnataka governments, the Pullela Gopichand academy in Hyderbad and Prakash Padukone Academy in Bangalore have been shut down for two weeks.
Saina Nehwal is holidaying with husband Parupalli Kashyap in the Maldives.
Indian badminton star Pusarla V Sindhu won badminton's women's bronze at the Tokyo Olympics, beating China's He Bing Jao 21-13, 21-15 in third-place play-off on Sunday.
Sindhu yet again struggled to buck the trend of early exits
Check out the complete schedule of Indian athletes at the Tokyo Olympics
Reigning World champion and title favourite P V Sindhu sailed into the pre-quarter-finals at the China Open Super 1000 tournament with a convincing straight-games victory over former Olympic gold medallist Li Xuerui, in Changzhou, on Wednesday.
Parupalli Kashyap and B Sai Praneeth, along with several other Indian players, are in Switzerland
The apex body had also announced that ranking points earned at tournaments during the original qualification phase will be maintained.
No Indians featured in the women's doubles and mixed doubles rankings.
Indian athletes, including the boxers and shooters, hit the ground running as they started their pre-Olympic training, hoping to live up to massive expectations in the pandemic-hit Games in Tokyo.
Sindhu lost 7-21, 24-22, 15-21 to Beiwen Zhang of United States in a match that lasted 56 minutes while World Championships bronze-medallst Sai Praneeth was trailing 9-21, 7-11 when he conceded the match to fifth-seeded Anders Antonsen of Denmark due to an unspecified injury.
The 28-year-old from Kerala had spent two weeks stressing over his physical and mental health after contracting COVID-19 last November.
Satwik-Chirag dished out a gritty performance to outwit the local favourites a
H S Prannoy stunned World No 10 Kanta Tsuneyama while ace Indian women shuttlers PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal also sailed into the second round of the Malaysia Masters, in Kuala Lumpur, on Wednesday. World Championships bronze-medallist B Sai Praneeth and the seasoned Kidambi Srikanth, though, bowed out of the men's singles events.
Former champions P V Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth stayed on course to reclaim titles while a vintage Parupalli Kashyap too regained some form to seal places in the men's singles semi-finals of the US $350,000 India Open badminton, in Delhi, on Friday.
Expectations from the Indian male shuttlers will also be high, given their exploits in recent months.
Besides Srikanth, the other players withdrawn are Ashwini Ponnappa, Ritika Rahul Thkar, Treesa Jolly, Mithun Manjunath, Simran Aman Singh and Khushi Gupta.
Saina Nehwal scored a hard-fought victory over Eriko Hirose of Japan to enter the quarter-finals in the women's singles at the Singapore Super Series.
Saina Nehwal avenged her quarter-final defeat at the Thailand Open on Wednesday, beating Singapore's Juan Gu in straight games in the opening round of the Singapore Super Series. The World No 2 Indian ace needed only 40 minutes to pack off Juan, ranked 21, winning 21-14, 23-21 and registering her fifth victory over the local player.
The results of Indian athletes participating in the Olympics on Day 5.
Kidambi Srikanth continued his fine form to enter the men's singles semi-finals but Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu bowed out of the Australian Open Super Series badminton tournament in Sydney, on Friday.
Returning to action after a break, double Olympic medallist P V Sindhu saw off Turkey's Neslihan Yigit in straight games to join compatriots Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma in the second round of the Denmark Open in Odense on Tuesday.
The Indian team, comprising Olympic hopefuls PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal and B Sai Praneeth, have been allotted training timings. The players also had their first gym session in the afternoon.
The star Indian pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy will be the key attraction in the men's doubles category. However, they are set to face a stiff competition as the line-up includes the three-time world champion and world No. 2 Indonesian duo of Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan alongside another Indonesian pair of Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto, who are currently ranked eighth in the world.
India have been drawn with top seeds and defending champions China, Thailand and hosts Finland for the upcoming Sudirman Cup badminton tournament, making it a tough Group A for the side to negotiate.
Sporting fraternity hails Sindhu's historic World C'ships gold
Two players withdrawn from India Open due to COVID-19
Rejuvenated after a month-long break from a hectic BWF schedule, Sindhu and Srikanth prevailed over Japanese shuttlers Aya Ohori and Kenta Nishimoto in women's and men's singles respectively.
Following is India's schedule at the Tokyo Olympics on Saturday, July 24.
Deepika and Atanu form the mixed team and they kickstarted their training
India will be sending full teams for the Thailand Open Grand Prix Gold (May 30-June 4), Indonesia Open Super Series (June 12-18) and Australian Open Super Series (June 20-25).
The 18-year-old Sen, the 2018 world junior championships silver-medallist, lost 13-21, 12-21 to Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk of Thailand in a 32-minute contest.
Srikanth was to play against Momota in the first round on Wednesday but the Japanese world number one pulled out of the tournament on Tuesday
Denmark's 2017 World Champion Viktor Axelsen and home favourite Okuhara Nozomi, who won bronze at Rio 2016, are also among the star names.
P V Sindhu on Monday said she received congratulatory message from chief national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand but she has not got any such gesture yet from senior shuttler Saina Nehwal following her bronze medal winning feat at the Tokyo Olympics.
P V Sindhu will be eager to return to the podium as former winner Saina Nehwal looks to regain her touch
Shuttler N Sikki Reddy and physiotherapist Kiran C have tested positive for COVID-19 at the ongoing national camp, forcing the closure of the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy in Hyderabad for sanitisation.
Rio Olympics silver medallist P V Sindhu began her campaign at the Tokyo Olympics with an easy 21-7, 21-10 victory over Israel's Ksenia Polikarpova in her first singles group match on Sunday.
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