All England C'ship: Sindhu, Saina aim to break 18-year-old jinx

Birmingham: A challenging draw stands in the way but India's top shuttlers PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal will

nonetheless fancy their chances of ending a nearly two-decade old title jinx at the All England Championship starting Wednesday.

It was Sindhu and Saina's mentor and current chief national coach P Gopichand, who was the last Indian to win the championship back in 2001.

Only the top 32 in the Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings qualify for the tournament and out of them, only three Indians have been seeded -- the third being Kidambi Srikanth (seeded seventh) in the men's event.

Fifth-seeded Olympic and world championship silver-medallist Sindhu will square off against former world no 2 Sung Ji Hyun of South Korea at the USD one million event.

London Olympics bronze-medallist Saina, seeded eighth, will start her campaign against Scotland's Kristy Gilmour.

The star shuttlers have had contrasting results against their first-round opponents.

While Saina enjoys a 6-0 overall record against Gilmour, Sindhu has been troubled by Sung Ji but leads 8-6 in their previous 14 encounters.

Sung Ji defeated Sindhu twice in three meetings last year and if the Indian can put it past the Korean, she will run into either Russian Evgeniya Kosetskaya or Hong Kong's Cheung Ngan Yi in the second round.

A favourable result will then pit Sindhu against third-seeded Chinese youngster, Chen Yufei in the quarterfinals.

The Indian had lost to Chen at the 2018 China Open and will be wary of the Chinese despite enjoying a 4-3 head-to-head record.

"Each round will be comparatively tough. Each point is important to me. I am playing Sung Ji Hyun in the first round and it would be important for me to focus from the first round," said the 23-year-old, who had reached the semifinals in the last edition.

While Sindhu has been in red-hot form last season, claiming silver medals at all major events, former world no. 1 Saina remains the only Indian to come close to winning the prestigious title, finishing runners-up in 2015.

The seasoned Hyderabadi enjoyed a good start to the year, winning the title at the Indonesia Masters in January and getting the better of Sindhu in the national finals to claim the crown.

Saina, who turns 29 on March 17, will face either Denmark's Line Hojmark Kjaersfeldt or China's Cai Yanyan if she happens to win the first round.

While Saina has an edge over the Dane, she has never faced the 19-year-old Chinese player before.