The search starts from May 27 to June 7 in Mumbai to identify potentially good players for a two-day tournament at the Cricket Club of India on June 15 and 16, at the end of which a boy and a girl would be chosen to train at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy in Bangalore.

Saina made an early exit from the Indian Open Super Series event held in Delhi last month and is missing the ongoing Sudirman Cup mixed team championships in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia due to a toe injury.

In the second tie, World number 13 Sindhu failed to live up to the expectations as she went down tamely to Fanetri Lindaweni, ranked 15th, 15-21 10-21 in women's singles.

Many cases of H7N9 bird flu have been detected at farms in the eastern Chinese provinces of Anhui, Jiangxi and Fujian, which are the main suppliers of the duck feathers used by national badminton birdie manufacturers.

Only PV Sindhu could offer a semblance of a fight in her 21-19 16-21 14-21 women's singles loss to Wang Yihan while the four other Indians were outclassed by the Chinese at the Putra Stadium.

With hardly any time left to name a replacement for Saina, the Malaysian Grand Prix Gold champion, world no. 13 Sindhu is all set to spearhead the Indian challenge in the women's singles.

Meanwhile, in a change in the power echelon of the BWF, former Olympic champion in the men's singles in the 1996 Atlanta Games, Denmark's Paul-Erik Hoyer Larsen was elected as the new BWF President.

India now has no option but to field a depleted side as far as the women's team is concerned, as earlier even the doubles specialist Jwala Gutta had withdrawn from the meet.

The doubles specialist has been struggling to find a steady partner ever since she and Ashwini Ponappa parted ways after the London Olympics last year.

Sourabh Verma and Anand Pawar both dropped a place each to 36th and 43rd, respectively, while K. Srikkanth jumped five places to enter the top-50 for the first time at 47.