ON A high after her semi-final finish in the US Open last week, Nagpur’s Malvika Bansod will be expecting to go one notch above when she begins her campaign at the Canada Open badminton tournament in Calgary on Tuesday. In her opening round women’s singles fixture, Malvika face Julie Dawall Jakobsen of Denmark. Malvika is in the bottom half of the draw which has WR 14 Nozomi Okuhara as the second seed. But her immediate next challenge may be against WR 21 Line Hojmark Kjaersfeldt of Denmark. The Danish player has got a fourth seed and could be Malvika’s last-16 challenger.

 

If she is able to overcome the pre-quarters hurdle, Malvika may face fifth seed Sung Shuo Yun, who is WR 24. Apart from Malvika, there are other women compatriots in the fray. Anupama Upadhyaya will face Rachael Darragh of Ireland while Tanya Hemanth will take on a qualifier among other Indians in the women’s singles. Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand are seeded third and have got a bye into the round of 16.

They will await the winners of Natasja Anthnisen (Denmark) and Alyssa Tirtosentono (Netherlands) and local favourites Chloe Hoang and Eliana Zhang.