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The Badminton Association of India (BAI) on Monday rubbished claims of Indian shuttlers HS Prannoy and B Sai Praneeth that administrative goof-ups had robbed them of participation at the Asia Badminton Championship.
"Based on the e-mail received from Badminton Asia, we were asked to send names of two players each for men’s singles, women's singles; three names each for men's and women's doubles and 4 players for mixed doubles" BAI said in a statement.
India will be represented by Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma in men's singles at the event in Wuhan, China, starting on Tuesday. Allegedly, the BAI didn't confirm entries of Prannoy and Praneeth to organisers.
Prannoy had been battling a gastroesophageal reflux disease since last year and thus missed out on a lot of time. He reached the quarter-finals at India Open, but with this, he won't have the chance to defend his semi-final ranking points.
According to him, they were stranded in Hong Kong during the Asia Mixed team championship, apparently, due to another BAI goof-up.
"The BAI official sent in the transportation request for Hong Kong event in the form of Wuhan event (individual event). Can you imagine that?," Prannoy said.
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