Favourable draw for host shuttlers

Saina gets a bye in first round

For the sixth seed Saina it could be a smooth ride till the quarterfinal stage in the meet to be held at the Gachibowli stadium. In the third round, she may face tenth seed Bulgarian Petya Nedelcheva and if she overcomes her, she may run into second seeded Lin Wang of China in the quarterfinals.

The draw was made here on Tuesday in the presence of Commonwealth Games

Federation president Mike Fennell, Badminton World Federation’s vice-president Paisan Rangsikitpho and Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Suresh Kalmadi.

Former All England champions Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand, national coach, were also present at the event. Among other Indians, Sayali Gokhale will meet Jie Wao of The Netherlands in the first round and Aditi Mutatkar will face eleventh seed German Juliane Schenk. Hong Kong’s Zhou Mi is the top seed while China’ Wang Lin is second. 

In the men’s singles first round, India’s 15th seed Chetan Anand will face South Korean Ji Hoon Hong, Arvind Bhat will come across ninth seed Yu Hsing Hsieh of Chinese Taipei while P Kashyap will take on Iran’s Ali Shahhoseini. Mal-aysia’s Lee Wei Chong has been seeded first while China’s Chen Jin is second. Chinese world and Olympic champion Fifth seed Lin Dan meet tricky compatriot and 11th seed Bao Chunlai in the third round while Danish veteran Peter Gade also lurks in the top section of the 64-player field. Indonesian  Taufik Hidayat, the fourth seed, and Chinese second seed Chen Jin should clash in the semi-final if rankings hold good in the lower half.

Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas will lead the Indian challenge in the men’s doubles and will face 14th seeded Japanese pair Hayakawa Kenichi .

While the other Indian pair Jishnu Sanyal and Akshay Diwalkar will meet Thailand shuttlers Chalardchaleam Patipat and Narkthong Nuttaphon in the first round.  In the women’s doubles, Aparna Balan and Shruti Kurian got a bye in the first round. Balan will then team up with Arun Vishnu to start campaign against Japanese pair Hirata Noriyasu and Matsuo Shizuka in the mixed doubles while the eight seeded Indian pair of Diju Valiyaveetil and Jwala Gutta got a bye in the first round.