Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya Sen will face compatriot Kidambi Srikanth in the men’s singles opening round match of the French Open badminton tournament here on Tuesday

Lakshya and Srikanth, the top two Indians in world ranking at eighth and 11th, respectively, will battle it out for the second time in their career.

In their earlier match-up, Srikanth had won in a tightly-fought contest against Lakshya to win the silver at the 2021 World Championships.

The winner between the two Indians is likely to bump into the Danish world No.2 Anders Antonsen in the next round of the World Tour 750 event.

Lakshya was the best Indian on show at the recently-concluded Denmark Open but he had lost to Japan’s Kodai Naraoka in the quarter finals.

HS Prannoy has an easy first round outing against Daren Liew of Malaysia, against whom the Indian has a 7-4 head-to-head record.

World No. 13 Prannoy was unlucky to run into Lakshya in the second round of Denmark Open. This time, he has potential big challengers in fifth seed Kento Momota and fourth seed Chou Tien Chen in the later rounds if he goes past the first hurdle.

Prannoy ended a seven-match losing streak against Japanese world No. 9 Momota at the 2022 World Championships and he would look to continue his winning momentum.

Olympics bronze medallist Saina Nehwal will take on Yvonne Li of Germany in her women’s singles opening round. Saina defeated the German in their only meeting that happened in 2020.

Commonwealth Games gold medal winning men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty are the only seeded (7th) Indians in the fray and they find themselves in the same quarter as top seed duo of Takuro Hoki and Yuo Kobayashi of Japan.

The other Indian doubles pair in the fray, MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila will take on fifth seed Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto of Indonesia. Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand and Ishaan Bhatnagar-Tanisha Crasto are also in the fray in the women’s doubles and mixed doubles, respectively.