World No. 9 Prannoy HS and former World No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth spearhead the line-up as Indian shuttlers get ready for 75th Inter State-Inter Zonal Badminton Championships and 84th Senior National Badminton Championships to be played at the Balewadi stadium in Pune from February 22 to 28.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The senior nationals was not held for the last two years due to the Covid pandemic and returns to a city that is widely considered as the birth place of shuttle badminton.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
"The popularity of the game is on an all-time high with the national team creating history by winning the Thomas Cup last year and then clinching India's first-ever Badminton Asia Mixed Team medal earlier this month. National championship provides a fantastic platform for upcoming players to challenge the established stars and unearth fresh talent," said Badminton Association of India secretary Sanjay Mishra.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
BAI has exponentially increased the prize money for the National championships since 2017 with a total prize purse of INR 40L for individual championships and INR 10L for the Inter State-Inter Zonal meet.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The team championship will be played on February 22 and 23 with the individual event kicking off from February 24 onwards.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Prannoy and Srikanth, who played an important role in India's Thomas Cup and Asian Mixed Team podium finish, will face a stiff challenge in their quest for glory from the likes of defending champion Sourabh Verma, former world championships bronze medallist B Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The challenge of the young brigade is likely to be shouldered by the likes of Mithun Manjunath, Kiran George and Priyanshu Rajawat as a total of 479 entries have been registered for honours.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The other stars set to vie for the coveted title include All England semi-finalist women's doubles combination of Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly, men's doubles specialists Chirag Shetty, Dhruv Kapila, Krishna Prasad and Vishnuvardhan Goud.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The men's and women's singles champions will take home a prize purse of INR 3.25L each with the doubles champions getting richer by INR 3.45L.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The winning team in the Inter State-Inter Zonal meet will earn INR 5L as prize money.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The men's and women's singles champions will take home a prize purse of INR 3.25L each with the doubles champions getting richer by INR 3.45L.<\/p>\r\n\r\n