The Indian badminton contingent will kick-start their campaign at Rio 2016 and starting off things will be the Women’s Doubles team of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa who will play the top-seeded pairing of Ayaka Takahashi/Misaki Matsutomo of Japan in their 1st Group A match.
Gutta and Ponnappa last played together at the Uber Cup, where they registered a fine win in the quarterfinal against Thailand and will now look to get off to a morale-boosting start by beating the top seeds on Thursday.
It certainly won't be the easiest of starts for the Indian duo, who have struggled for consistency in the past year or so and if they can pull off a win, then it would surely help their confidence looking ahead to the remainder of the group matches.
Their opponents, on the other hand, have had a good past year, wherein they have been crowned Asian champions, won the World Superseries Finals and are the reigning Women’s Doubles All England champion.
Prior to leaving for Rio, the doubles coach for the team Tan Kim Her made an interesting point where he said that duo weren’t going to Rio as the favourites to win a medal and that could world in their favour. Jwala and Ashwini’s last major triumph was in July last year when they won the Canada Open Grand Prix Gold, defeating Eefje Muskens and Selena Piek, who incidentally are in their group in Rio as well.
This is an important Olympics for Jwala from the point of view that it could be her final opportunity to stake a claim at winning the coveted medal, which is the only piece of metal that has eluded her so far. She has won two Commonwealth Games medals, two Uber Cup bronze medals and an Asian Championships bronze. So she will surely be gunning for a medal at Rio that would complete the puzzle.
It promises to be a long day of action for the shuttlers with all seven in action and hopefully Jwala and Ashwini can begin the campaign on a positive note.
Matchup: Jwala Gutta/Ashwini Ponnappa vs Ayaka Takahashi/Misaki Matsutomo
TV details: Star Sports network, hotstar.com and DD Sports
Time: 4:30 P.M IST
