The last week of March represents the last big chance for any changes in the BWF Road To Paris rankings that will determine who will go to the 2024 Olympics, by way of the BWF Madrid Masters (a Super 300 event). With the Thomas and Uber Cups ending (May 5) after the qualification period ends (April 28), the Madrid Masters gains more significance.
Currently, these are the Indians who stand to represent the nation at the Olympics:
MS: HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen
WS: PV Sindhu
MD: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy - Chirag Shetty
WD: Ashwini Ponnappa - Tanisha Crasto
XD: no one
With that in mind, here's a lookahead to the Madrid Masters, event-wise:
Men's Singles
This appears a done deal with Lakshya Sen's recent resurgence helping him rise up to RTP #12 with 64021 points. Kidambi Srikanth's run to the Swiss Open will help him climb from #27 (47943 points), but as you can see with the points totals, the gap now is far too big.
Lakshya will look to seal it with an emphatic performance in Madrid. His first-round opponent is Takuma Obayashi of Japan (RTP #31, Japan's 5th highest) and he could potentially face compatriot Kiran George in the second round. There's a potential quarter against Loh Kean Yew or Christo Popov in the cards, with an even tastier semifinal prospect: Lakshya vs Srikanth.
To reach there, though, Srikanth (who will face a qualifier in the first round) will likely have a potentially tricky quarter against Malaysia's Ng Tze Yong to navigate (who beat Srikanth in both the individual and team events at CWG '22).
Kiran George, meanwhile, will take on Chinese Taipei's Chia Hao Lee before that potential second rounder against Lakshya. There's another Indian in the draw: Satish Kumar Karunakaran. He will face a qualifier in the first round, but the bigger challenge will come in the next round, when he will likely face third seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei.
Qualifiers: Sameer Verma and one of Mithun Manjunath or Sankar Subramanian (they face each other) will vie to be in the first round.
Women's Singles
The race for Paris is done here, PV Sindhu (RTP #13, 61222 points) the only Indian who can make it to the 2024 Games. Sindhu has an interesting draw here in Madrid - she'll face Wen Yu Zhang of Canada in the first round before a potential second round tie against compatriot Malvika Bansod. Thailand's Supanida Katethong is a potential quarterfinal opponent. Sindhu, seeded second, is in the other side of the draw as top seed, local favourite, and great rival Carolina Marin. Anyone rooting for a repeat of the Rio Olympics final?
The other Indian in the main draw, Ashmita Chaliha (RTP #48), has a tough opener against Thailand's best player Ratchanok Intanon.
Men's Doubles
Another done deal, with world no.1 pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty the only Indian MD pair going to Paris.
With Sat-Chi taking time off the tour, though, the understudies have a chance to shine in Madrid.
Krishna Prasad Garaga and Sai Pratheek, though, face fourth seeds Dong-Nyl of Canada in their opener; while MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila have a more straightforward opener: the eighth seeds face Mexico's Castillo-Montoya Navarro. The biggest names in their side of the draw are second seeds Ben Lane and Sen Vendy of England.
Women's Doubles
This is the one event where some jeopardy exists in terms of Indian participation in Paris. Ashwini Ponnappa-Tanisha Crasto are clear favourites to go (RTP #20, 51010 points) and Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand (RTP #26, 44714 points) appear to be too far away to trouble them, but a bad result for the former and a title win for the latter and things could get interesting.
Ash-Tan will start off against a qualifier, with their tough test to likely come from a potential quarterfinalists Lee-Teng of Chinese Taipei; before they could possibly face second seeds Kusuma-Pratiwi of Indonesia in the semis.
Gaya-Tree will start against Annie and Kerry Xu (who they had beaten in the Swiss Open last week), and need a strong run in a half that includes the Stoevas (RTP #23) and Iwanaga-Nakanishi (RTP #14) to stand a chance and pip Ash-Tan to that Paris ticket.
In other Indian participation, Ashwini Bhat and Shikha Gautam start against the aforementioned Lee-Teng while Priya Konjengbam and Shruti Mishra start against Japan's Rui Hirokami and Yuna Kato (RTP #28).
Mixed Doubles
There's no Indian interest with respect to the Olympics, but there are two Indian pairs who'll look to go deep in Madrid.
Satish Karunakran-Aadya Variyath have a tough opener against 6th seeds Rivaldy-Mentari of Indonesia while Sumeeth Reddy-Sikki Reddy start off against Germany's Lamsfuss-Lohau. They then face a potential second rounder against another seeded Indonesian pair (7th), Ferdinansyah-Widjaja.