19th June -24th June Players and Draws informations. https://www.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/tournament.aspx?id=65F72699-96CD-458F-B8E1-F1648CF4EEA6
If Li Xuerui is Qualifier 2, Michelle Li or her will be meeting in round 2! All qualifiers are in the first half of the draw. Let hope the official is smart enough to give Li Xuerui a Wildcard if any player withdrew.
I don't believe there is any wildcard once the draw has been made. She was 7th among the qualifiers and is thus not one of the seeds. If you have 4 withdrawals from the main draw, those 4 seeds will be promoted first. After that, it is still by ranking so for Li Xuerui to be promoted into some other part of the draw, you'd have to have 7 withdrawals from the main draw or from among the 6 qualifiers ranked ahead of her. That's a lot of withdrawals but it is not unheard-of.
For sure Michelle Li wants to do well on home soil in front of the Canadian crowd, a shame that the two Lis have to meet so early in the draw.
No doubt. On the other hand, if you're looking for an excuse for leaving home and taking an early flight to Malaysia - where she has to be ready to play Sayaka Sato next Wednesday - then being beaten by the Olympic and U.S. Open champion is not a bad one
Indeed, she will make amend this time after suffered first round exit last year. WS draw has pretty good line-up, Michelle Li, Li Xuerui and two Japanese players Sayaka Takahashi, Minatsu Mitani.
Not trying to downplay Li Xuerui's chances here, just being realistic, in her current state, I really doubt she can handle 12 matches in two weeks, that against some serious opposition in the likes of Michelle Li, Mitani Minatsu, and, especially Sayaka Takahashi (highly fancied), not to mention a few other lesser lights, such as Kim Hyo Min (who once conquered Marin), Ayumi Mine, Kim Ga Eun, Jui Jeon, and even her fellow juniors Gao Fangjie, Zhang Yiman and Cai Yanyan - should they happen to meet.
As for the MS category, it actually has 64 participants, double that of WS, though all the seeded players have 1st round byes. Apart from the usual suspects, frontrunners Lee Dong Keun, Mark Caljouw and Heo Kwang Hee, and three young promising prospects in Kodai Naraoka, Yu Igarashi and Ha Young Woon, I hope to see the CHN reps do better than last week's US Open, in particular Lu Guangzu.
Wow, so generous of the CAN Open organizer to provide livestreams for all the five courts in the qualifier. Thumbs up to them !
It's only a WTS100 event and Li Xuerui has to play altogether seven rounds to the final, with two in the qualifier, one round more than she had to at last week's US Open WTS300. Strange.
How do you get to see the matches live, Justin? Badminton world tv? And is there any recorded matches that are available.
Because the WTS100 has a larger turnout than the WTS300 and they are both open to the lower ranked players as well as held in the same region.
@lurker They are streamin from their own Youtube channel. Quality is better than with any of the videostream or badminton asia sites: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBoDfgkXB3A35thO6Maw00w
