Indian Sports Calendar in 2023: Major events to watch in fourth week of April

Badminton Asia Championships will begin in the coming week.

A lot of sporting events are lined up for the upcoming week of the Indian sports calendar. Seoul Olympic Grand Prix (Sabre) will be the first Olympic qualifying event for Fencing. WTT Star Contender Bangkok (table tennis) will be making its return after a month's gap. Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Manika Batra will be spearheading the Indian contingent.

Here we take a look at the events to follow in the upcoming week (April 23-30 April) in the Indian sports calendar.

Tennis

April 26-07 May: ATP and WTA Madrid Masters

Doubles - Rohan Bopanna/Matthew Ebden

Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden reached the semi-finals of the ATP Barcelona Open and will look to continue the same form going forward at the Madrid Masters.

April 23-30 April: ATP Seoul Challenger

Singles - Sasikumar Mukund (Qualifying)

Doubles - Anirudh Chandrasekhar/Vijay Sundar Prasanth

The Challenger series returns to Asia after a month’s break. Anirudh Chandrasekhar and Vijay Sundar Prasanth have done a great job in the last few weeks finishing as finalists at the ATP Split Challenger.

April 23-30 April: ATP Rome Challenger

Singles - Sumit Nagal (Qualifying)

Sumit Nagal looked in good touch winning three matches (two qualifiers and one main-round match) last week. Nagal will look to break into the top 300 this week and get closer to qualifying for the French Open qualifiers.

Football

Super Cup 2023

Hero Super Cup 2023 is the only event in the upcoming week of the Indian sports calendar. Bengaluru FC and NorthEast United FC/Odisha FC will play in the finals of the third edition of the Super Cup.

Table Tennis

April 23-30 April: WTT Star Contender Bangkok

WTT Star Contender Bangkok is the only Table Tennis event in the upcoming week of the Indian Sports Calendar. Top Indian paddlers Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Manika Batra will spearhead the men’s and women’s contingent at the WTT Star Contender Bangkok.

Manika lost in the opening rounds of WTT Champions (Xinjiang and Macao). Sathiyan, on the other hand, had a successful outing at the National Championships.

Men’s Singles

Main Draw

Sathiyan Gnanasekaran

Qualifying

Manav Vikas Thakkar, Harmeet Dessai, Payas Jain, and Manush Utpalbhai Shah

Men’s Doubles

Main Draw

Manav Vikas Thakkar / Harmeet Desai

Women’s Singles

Main Draw

Manika Batra

Qualifying Draw

Sreeja Akula, Ayhika Mukherjee, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Diya Parag Chitale, Archana Girish Kamath, and Yashaswini Ghorpade.

Women’s Doubles

Qualifying Draw

Suthirta Mukherjee / Ayhika Mukherjee

Sreeja Akula / Diya Parag Chitale

Mixed Doubles

Main Draw

Sathiyan Gnanasekaran / Manika Batra

Qualifying Draw

Manav Vikas Thakkar / Archana Girish Kamath

Fencing

April 27: Seoul Grand Prix (Sabre)

The Seoul Grand Prix will the first qualifying event for the Paris Olympics 2024 and the only fencing event in the upcoming week of the Indian Sports Calendar. Top-ranked Indians Karan Singh and Bhavani Devi will look to start the qualifying event on a positive note. 

Men’s - Karan Singh, Gisho Nidhi, Vishal Thapar, and Abhay Shinde

Women’s - Bhavani Devi, Laishram Abi Devi

Athletics

April 28-30 April: Junior Athletic Federation Championships

There is only one Athletics event in the upcoming week of the Indian Sports Calendar.

Badminton

April 25-30 April: Badminton Asia Championships

After a successful stint at the Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships, the bandwagon moves to individual events. Top shuttlers from Asia will be taking part in the Continental event and this will also act as a precursor to the BWF Sudirman Cup 2023 scheduled to be held next month. There are no other badminton events in the upcoming week of the Indian Sports Calendar.

Men’s Singles - HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen, and Kidambi Srikkanth

Womens Singles - Malvika Bansod, Saina Nehwal, Aakarshi Kashyap, and PV Sindhu

Men’s Doubles - Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty, Dhruv Kapila/MR Arjun, Krishna Garaga/Panjala

Women’s Doubles - Shika Gautam/Ashwinin Bhat, Treesa Jolly/Gayatri Gopichand, Simran Singhi/Ritika Thaker (qualifying), and Haritha/Ashna Roy (qualifying)

Mixed Doubles - (Qualifying) Sumeeth Reddy/Ashwini Ponappa, Venkat Prasad/Juhi Dewangan, and Rohan Kapoor/Sikki Reddy