Top Malaysian Player in the Same Draw with World Number Four
The singles competition in this week’s China Badminton Masters has just gotten interesting after world number one Lee Chong Wei is confirmed to be on the same draw with China’s Lin Dan, a world champion. This means that the two could potentially meet in the semifinals should the seedings hold.
The reshuffling of the draw took place after world number 20 Wacha Przemyslaw of Poland decided to pull out of the competition. The Badminton World Federation (BWF) confirmed this development.
In most cases, the BWF usually don’t conduct reshuffling of the draw unless they feel that a player’s withdrawal would affect the draw. V. Venugopal, BWF event manager, said that the tournament referee believes that there’s a need to rearrange the draw. The redraw took place only on the men’s singles event.
Despite this development, Malaysia’s national coach Misbun Sidek said that the redrawing would not affect Chong Wei, currently the world number one player, since it the focus at this point is to win the earlier rounds, where younger players are raring to give it a shot in beating the world’s best.
In the other side of the draw, second seed Chen Jin of China will possibly lift his badminton racquet against compatriot Bao Chunlai, Thai player Boonsak Ponsana, Malaysian player Wong Choong Hann and Danish player Peter-Gade Christensen in the latter rounds of this prestigious badminton event.
Malaysia, Indonesia and China have top-class badminton players and this tournament will serve as a gauge when it comes to upcoming international competitions. The winners are bound to make a mark in badminton history.
