Jwala and co to start campaign in Bitburger Open

Celebrated women's doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa and a few other Indians will start their campaign in the Bitburger Open Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament which starts with the qualifiers at Saarbrucken, Germany tomorrow.
The commonwealth Games gold medallist pair, who started playing together again after a gap of one year during the French Open, will take on German combo of Anika Dorr and Annika Horbach in the opening round of women's doubles competition.
In the French Open, Jwala and Ashwini had lost in three games against world number 16 Indonesian combo of Gebby Ristiyani Imawan and Tiara Rosalia Nuraidah in the first round.

In the men's singles, Arvind Bhat will lock horns with third seed Rajiv Ouseph, eight seed Sai Praneeth B will meet Joachim Persson, while fifth seed Anand Pawar will fight out with Ukraine's Kyrylo Leonov.
In women's singles, P C Thulasi will be up against sixth seed Sashina Vignes Waran.
Men's doubles pair of Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy B will take on seventh seeded German duo of Michael Fuchs and Johannes Schoettler, while Ashwini and Tarun Kona, seeded sixth, will be up against Sweden's Nico Ruponen and Amanda Hogstrom in mixed doubles competition.
Jwala could not compete at the Denmark Open, which was supposed to be her comeback tournament, after BAI withdrew her entry at the last moment, following a recommendation of life ban by its disciplinary committee for an alleged disciplinary breach during the IBL.