The 2021 All England Open will be the second tournament this year to offer ranking points to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, after the Swiss Open. According to the draw released by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) on Tuesday, Olympic silver medallist Sindhu will kick off her campaign in the women's singles with a clash against Malaysia's Soniia Cheah. In other men's singles matches, Kidambi Srikanth is set to face the formidable Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia in the opening round while world championships bronze medallist B Sai Praneeth will take on France's Toma Junior Popov. All England Open 2021 draw for Indian players: Women's Singles PV Sindhu vs Soniia Cheah (Malaysia) Saina Nehwal vs Mia Blichfeldt (Denmark) Men's Singles Kidambi Srikanth vs Tommy Sugiarto (Indonesia) Parupalli Kashyap vs Kento Momota (Japan) Lakshya Sen vs Kantaphon Wangcharoen (Thailand) HS Prannoy vs Liew Daren (Malaysia) Sameer Verma vs Ygor Coelho (Brazil) B Sai Praneeth vs Toma Junior Popov (France) Men's Doubles Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty vs Eloi Adam/Julien Maio (France) MR Arjun/Dhruv Kapila vs Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi (Malaysia) Women's Doubles Ashwini Ponnappa/ N Sikki Reddy vs Benyapa Aimsaard/Nuntakarn Aimsaard (Thailand) Meghana Jakkampudi/Poorvisha Ram vs Alexandre Boje/Mette Poulsen (Denmark) Ashwini Bhat/Shikha Gautam vs Chloe Birch/Lauren Smith (England) Mixed Doubles Dhruv Kapila/Meghana Jakkampudi vs Praveen Jordan/Melati Oktavianti (Indonesia) Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/ Ashwini Ponnappa vs Yuki Kaneko/Misaki Matsutomo (Japan) Pranaav Jerry Chopra/ N Sikki Reddy vs Max Flynn/Jessica Pugh (England).

The National Sports Development Code 2011 is currently governing the National Sports Federations but Rijiju insisted that it needs to be modified as per the needs of today's times. Mr Rijiju's comment has come at a time when the sports ministry is locked in a legal battle in the Delhi High Court, where it is defending a relaxation clause with regards to NSFs' recognition, which has been challenged. The Centre last week had told the Delhi High Court that it has the executive powers to relax the provisions of the sports code, with regard to grant of recognition to national sports federations. In its affidavit, the ministry has said that the power of relaxation would be "exercised as a special exemption where considered necessary and expedient for the promotion of sports, sportspersons" and would always be guided by the sports code.

There were 89 matches scheduled at the Australian Open site on the middle day of a compressed week of six tournaments including three WTA events and three for the men’s tour, including the ATP Cup.“I played a shorter match yesterday, so maybe subconsciously I made myself play a long match today.”Italy is the first team through to the ATP Cup semifinals after winning the first two singles matches against France. In Wednesday’s other matches, Germany beat Canada 2-0 in the other early match.