Second seeds Treesa-Gayatri to spearhead Indian challenge at US Open Badminton

Fort Worth (USA): Commonwealth Games bronze medal-winning pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand will carry India's medal hopes in the absence of Paris Olympics-bound shuttlers in the US Open BWF World Tour, beginning here on Tuesday.

The world No. 24 Indian pair, who finished runner-up in Singapore Open Super 750 in May-June, is seeded second in the women's doubles draw of the Super 300 tournament.

Treesa and Gayatri have got a bye into round of 16 where they will face unseeded pair of Hseih Pei Shan and Hung En-Tzu of Chinese Taipei.

At the other end of the draw would be world No. 10 Japanese pair of Rin Iwanaga and Kie Nakanishi, who are the top seeds.

Fresh from their triumph in the Malaysia Masters in May, Rin and Kie are expected to go all the way for a potential summit clash against the Indian duo.

With less than a month to go for the Olympics, Paris-bound Indian shuttlers -- PV Sindhu, HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty and Ashwini Ponnappa/Tanisha Crasto -- have skipped the tournament.

In the men's singles, Priyanshu Rajawat, eighth seed, is the top Indian in the draw and will open his campaign against Jan Louda of Czech Republic.

Ayush Shetty and S Sankar Muthuswamy Subramanian are the two other Indians in the men's singles.

Shetty will face Jia Heng Jason Teh of Singapore while Muthuswamy will open his campaign against a qualifier.

Seeded seventh, Malvika Bansod is the top Indian in women's singles draw and will begin her campaign against Kristin Kuuba of Estonia.

Unseeded Tanya Hemanth is the other Indian in the fray in the women's singles and she will be up against fifth seeded Wen Chi Hsu of Chinese Taipei.

In the men's doubles, Krishna Prasad Garaga and Sai Pratheek K are seeded sixth and will face unseeded pair of Scott Guildea and Paul Reynolds of Ireland in their opening round clash.

Rohan Kapoor and Ruthvika Shivani Gadde are the only Indian in fray in the mixed doubles. They will face Alexander Dunn and Julie Macpherson in their opening round contest.