Injured Kashyap may miss Korea Open

After Saina Nehwal, India’s leading male shuttler Parupalli Kashyap is also likely to skip the season opening $600,000 Korea Open Super Series in January due to a partially dislocated shoulder.

The World No 14 said that he is likely to pull out of the Korea (Jan 7-12) event but will play the Malaysia Open Super Series Premier (Jan 14-19) and will defend his title at the India Grand Prix Gold (Jan 21-26).

“I partially dislocated my shoulder last week. It was almost on the verge of dislocation but came back into position; this is called subluxation. Most likely now I will pull out of the Korea Open as I did not train much because of the shoulder,” Kashyap said at the Siri Fort Sports Complex here on Friday.

“I had to stop practicing for 4-5 days and it is difficult to get back into playing mode when you stop training. If I am not feeling completely fit, I would not play. I will probably recover in another week. Malaysia and India is the plan right now.”

The former World No 6 is in the national capital to participate in the ongoing Senior National Badminton Championships. However, Kashyap missed the team championships due to the injury but has decided to play with a strapped shoulder in the individual championship where he is the defending champion,
“The shoulder is not 100 percent but I have got my physio and he has strapped it really hard. This is one of the tournaments I was looking forward to. I wanted to play the team event as well but this injury happened just three days before the tournament so I could not play. I am recovering and will try and give my best here,” he said.

The Hyderabadi had a fantastic 2012 by reaching the quarterfinals of the London Olympics and attained a career best ranking of World No 6. He also won the year-ending India Grand Prix Gold in Lucknow. But his performance graph has gone down in 2013.

“This year has been decent for me. It wasn’t a great season but I won’t say it was bad. I reached the quarterfinal at All England and missed the medal at the World Championships by a point. If I would have got that point, it would have been an excellent year,” said the 27-year-old.