Indian Sports in 2023: Top events to look forward to in January

Hockey World Cup to the Australian Open are some of the top events that will place this month.

The year 2022 was big for the sporting universe. From World Cups in different sports to World Championships and on top of it all the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. The bygone year provided some top sporting moments to cherish. Year 2023 promises to be bigger and perhaps better in terms of the events lined up.

Starting with the Tata Open Maharashtra to the Hockey World Cup as well as the Australian Open, 2023 has already lined up some top events in the first month itself. Here we take a look at the top events to look forward to in Indian sports in the month of January.

Tennis

ATP 250 Tata Open Maharashtra

ATP 250 Tata Open Maharashtra is set to be held from January 2 to 7 in Pune. This is the only ATP tour event to be held in South Asia. The world's top players are set to participate with Marin Cilic the number one seed in the singles section and Rajeev Ram and Salisbury in the doubles section.

India has got a good number of participants with Sasikumar Mukund, Sumit Nagal, and Manas Dhamne getting wildcards in the singles. Sasikumar is currently India’s number-one seed in singles.

Singles

• Sasikumar Mukund
• Sumit Nagal
• Manas Dhamne
• Ramkumar Ramanathan

Doubles

• Rohan Bopanna/Zandschulp
• Ramkumar Ramanathan/Varela
• Yuki Bhambri/Saketh Myneni
• Divij Sharan/Purav Raja
• Arjun Khade/Ramboli

Australian Open

The Australian Open is set to take place from January 15 to 29. India will not have any singles representation (men and women) in the first grand slam of the 2023 season with the players' rankings very high. There is good participation in the doubles section.

• Rohan Bopanna/Mathew Ebden
• Ramkumar Ramanathan/Varela
• Sania Mirza/Danilina

Yuki Bhambri/Saketh Myneni have good chances of qualifying and are currently placed second in the alternates list.

Hockey

Perhaps the biggest event in Indian sports in January, the 15th edition of the FIH Men’s Hockey World Cup is set to be held from January 13 to 29 in Odisha, India. 16 countries are set to take part in the prestigious event and India will be hosting the World Cup for the second consecutive time. The teams are divided into four pools with each group consisting of four nations.

India are placed in pool D along with Spain, England, and Wales. Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneshwar and Birsa Munda Stadium in Rourkela will be hosting the matches.

Badminton

India will be hosting the BWF 750 Indian Open from 17 to 22 January in New Delhi. India Open was a BWF 500 event in 2022 and this time it has been upgraded to 750. The world’s top players are set to participate with Victor Axelson the world No. 1 from Denmark the top seed in singles.

HS Prannoy, Kidambi Srikanth, and Lakshya Sen will spearhead the men’s singles section with PV Sindhu in the women’s section. World No. 5 Chirag Shetty/Satwik Rankireddy along with Dhruv Kapila/MR Arjun will be the top two seeds in the men's, with Gayatri/Treesa Jolly the top seed in the women’s doubles section.

Apart from the India Open, there are two more tournaments - BWF 1000 Malaysia Open (10-15 January) and BWF 500 Indonesia Masters (24th-29th January).

Table Tennis

The 2023 WTT Tour starts with two Contender events scheduled to be in Durban, South Africa and Doha, Qatar.

WTT Contender Durban: 10-15 January

• Men’s singles - Manav Thakkar and Snehit Suravajjula
• Men’s doubles - Manav Thakkar/Snehit Suravajjula
• Mixed doubles - Manav Thakkar/Archana Girish Kamath 

WTT Contender Doha: 15-21 January

• Men’s singles - Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Achanta Sharath Kamal
• Men’s singles qualifiers - Manush Shah and Harmeet Desai
• Women’s singles - Manika Batra
• Women’s singles qualifiers - Sreeja Akula, Yashaswini Ghorpade, and Swastika Ghosh.
• Men’s doubles qualifiers - Harmeet Desai/Manush Shah
• Mixed doubles - Sathiyan Gnanasekaran/Manika Batra

Fencing

Top Indian fencers both in the men’s and women’s section will be taking part in the Sabre Grand Prix to be held from 13-15 January in Tunisia.

Men’s Sabre

• Karan Singh
• Gisho Nidhi
• Abhay Shinde

Women’s Sabre

• Bhavani Devi

** Note: The list of all above-mentioned sporting events/athletes is subject to change.