New hope for Indian doubles in badminton

Recently, two men’s doubles pairs -- Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy and the young combo of Shlok Ramchandran and Sanyam Shukla -- showed sparks of brilliance at the US Open Grand Prix Gold and Mauritius International respectively.

While Manu and Sumeeth finished runners-up at the US Open last week, before winning the Lagos open to <g data-gr-id="18">break</g> into the top 20, youngsters Shlok and Sanyam clinched their maiden Mauritius International title in June.

2010 Commonwealth Games champions Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa are also coming back in form and have clinched the Canada Open in June.

“We had Maneesha and Manu reaching the finals of Syed Modi GPG in January, then <g data-gr-id="25">Sikki</g> (Reddy) and Pradnya (Gadre) did well in Sri Lanka and the Polish Open, they are around 30th in ranking now. In men’s doubles, we have two pairs who are doing well and Jwala and Ashwin are at World No. 12, so we are starting to see some players going up there and it is a good sign,” Gopichand told PTI.

“We also have a young bunch of them, who are playing well. So I think things are really looking positive,” he added.