Kashyap to face Hidayat in opener

India’s top shuttler Parupalli Kashyap will open his campaign against former world and Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat in the Japan Super Series which gets underway with the qualifiers at Tokyo on Wednesday.

The London Olympics quarterfinalist, Kashyap had lost to compariot RMV Gurusaidutt in the second round of the China Masters last week.

Giant killer PV Sindhu will face local player Kaori Imabeppu in her opening match.  Among other Indians, Anand Pawar will be up against world number one Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia, while Ajay Jayaram will clash with a qualifier in the men’s main draw which starts from Wednesday.

Guru will lock horns with fourth seed Sho Sasaki of Japan. 

B Sai Praneeth also qualified for the main draw beating Andrew Smith of England 21-15, 18-21, 21-19 in the first round of qualifiers and Japanese Riichi Takeshita 21-14, 21-15 in the second round.
 
The 20-year-old will face Malaysia’s Daren Liew in the main draw first round.

In men’s doubles, Pranaav Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar will face off with eighth seed Thien How Hoon and Wee Kiong Tan of Malaysia.

In mixed doubles, Tarun and Ashwini Ponnappa will take on the Japanese pair of Noriyasu Hirata and Miyuki Maeda.