Saina Nehwal seeks redemption at French Open
Still smarting from her second- round exit in Denmark last week, Saina Nehwal will seek redemption when she starts her campaign at the French Open Super Series, which begins with the qualifiers at Paris on Tuesday.
Fourth seed Nehwal suffered the ignominy of crashing out of the Denmark Open, when she went down to Tzu Ying Tai of Chinese Taipei, and the Indian ace will now have to ensure that there are no such hiccups when she takes on Holland's Jie Yao in her first match on Wednesday.
Saina will have to tread carefully, especially because the Dutch has a 2-1 record against the Indian. Yao had defeated Saina in 2006 Malaysia Open, and also enjoyed an upper hand at the Hong Kong Open in 2009.
In the men's singles, Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Parupalli Kashyap will take on Wan Ho Shon of Korea in his opening match, while Ajay Jayaram will open his campaign against a qualifier.
Commonwealth Games gold medallists Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa will take on Korean pair of Kyung Eun Jung and Ha Na Kim in their first match.
Jwala will also pair up with V Diju to fight it out with third seeds Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir of Indonesia in the mixed doubles pair.
The Indian pair suffered a straight-game defeat in a lopsided quarterfinal match at Denmark, and will now look to make amends at Paris.
India's best men's doubles pair of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas will face Angga Pratama and Ryan Agung Saputra of Indonesia in their opener.
In the qualifiers, Anand Pawar will clash with Dane Joachim Persson, while RMV Gurusaidutt will face Russia's Stanislav Pukhov.
2006 Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Chetan Anand will also go through the qualifiers, taking on Suppanyu Avihingsanon of Thailand on the opening day of the Series.
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