Venue : Taipei Arena, Taipei City-TPE
Total prize-money : US$200,000
tournamentsoftware link : http://www.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/tournament.aspx?id=A1089B9C-2419-418F-BA33-904828BCE203
Tournament website : http://www1.ctb.org.tw/index.asp
TPE time : http://www.worldtimezone.com/time/wtzresult.php?CiID=6744&forma=Find Time
2014 WINNERS => http://bwf.tournamentsoftware.com/s...4BA051-AD30-4BA5-B15C-4BE8D430CC3C&d=20140720
MS - Lin Dan (CHN)
WS - Sung Ji Hyun (KOR)
MD - Andrei Adistia/Hendra Aprida Gunawan (INA)
WD - Nitya Krishinda Maheswari/Greysia Polii (INA)
XD - Liu Yuchen/Yu Xiaohan (CHN)
The star-studded Chinese Taipei Open will kick off tomorrow, an unsual cast for Grand Prix Gold level where almost all A-listers are taking part here to entertain badminton fans in 6 days tournament ahead. Most of top guns will utilize this tournament as warming up preparation of imminent World Championships and upgrade world ranking to set up good seeding in that BWF gala event.
Seven of top 10 MS players - only misses two shining youngsters Kento Momota and Viktor Axelsen - are more than enough to describe the quality of this competition. Chen Long, Lin Dan, Jan O Jorgensen, Srikanth Kidambi, Son Wan Ho, Wang Zhengming, local favourite Chou Tien Chen and former world #1 Lee Chong Wei will rock the arena, one of them is predicted to top podium on Sunday's final. A fully packed of second stringers and back up players will try to grab the spotlight and surprise those elites.
In the absence of current world #1 & #2, Carolina Marin and Saina Nehwal respectively, the Chinese trio should have better prospect to boost their confidence, gearing up for world meet in Jakarta next month. Their major threat should coming from the resurgent former World Champion Ratchanok Intanon, home hopeful Tai Tzu Ying, defending champion Sung Ji Hyun and the emerging Japanese shuttlers.
Top seed Lee YD/Yoo YS and reigning world champion Ko SH/Shin BC who ruled last two Super Series, AUS and INA Open respectively are the strong candidate along with their close rivals, Ahsan/Setiawan, Fu HF/Zhang N, Chai B/Hong W. Three darkhorses Endo/Hayakawa, Kim GJ/Kim SR also local MD Lee SM/Tsai CH as well may trouble the frontrunners intention to clinch victory. Recent All England winner Boe/Mogensen skips this GP Gold.
China only fields two pairs in TPE, world #3 Luo Ying/Luo Yu and new experiment combo Ma J/Huang YQ who must crawling from qualification round. Top contenders beside Luo Twins should be the consistent Matsutomo/Takahashi, Pedersen/Juhl, last year champion Maheswari/Polii. Some familiar participants in this category are world #6 Kakiiwa/Maeda, Chang YN/Jung KE and just concluded Gwangju Universiade gold medalist Lee SH/Shin SC.
The powerful China mixed doubles quartet, Zhang N/Zhao YL, Xu C/Ma J, Liu C/Bao YX, Lu K/Huang YQ stamped their authority at top tier tournaments in first semester of this year. The rest of the world, represented by Fischer/Pedersen, Ko SH/Shin BC, Reginald Lee CH/Chau HW, three INA back up pairs, Jordan/Susanto, Widianto/Dili, Subaktiar/Widjaja will do their best to reject CHN solid domination.
Several players/pairs have withdrawn according to ts com updated : Zulfadli Zulkiffli (MAS), Kazumasa Sakai (JPN), Pablo Abian (ESP), Ajay Jayaram (IND), Akane Yamaguchi (JPN), Chrisnanta/Triyachart (SIN), Supajirakul/Taerattanachai (THA), etc.
QUALIFICATION (09.00am, 5 courts) => http://www.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/matches.aspx?id=A1089B9C-2419-418F-BA33-904828BCE203
