Vietnamese players to vie for medals at Asian badminton championship
Vietnam send strongest athletes to compete at the Badminton Asia Championship from April 25-30 at the Sheikh Rashid Bin Hamdan Indoor Hall in Dubai, the UAE.
National No. 1 female player Nguyen Thuy Linh advanced to the women's singles main draw after her two rivals in the qualification's Group A withdrew on April 25.
Linh will play Busanan Ongbamrungphan of Thailand in the first match on April 26.
Linh is sitting at No. 35 in the world. She has been at her peak performance, advancing to the finals of the Thailand Challenge and Ciputra Hanoi International Challenge in March. She won the latter on home ground.
Ongbamrungphan is higher than Linh in the rankings as she is at No. 13.
On the men's side, Vietnamese representative Nguyen Hai Dang will play in the main draw where he will meet tough rival Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei, who is the tournament No. 5.
In other categories, Nguyen Dinh Hoang and Tran Dinh Manh won two matches in the qualification's Group A of the men's doubles. They will face Chinese Taipei's Lee Jhe-Huei and Yang Po-hsuan in the main round.
Pham Van Hai and Than Van Anh went through to the main round of the mixed doubles event, facing Thai pair Ruttanapak Oupthong and Jhenicha Sudjaipraparat.
Dinh Thi Phuong Hong and Pham Thi Khanh failed to find their main round slot as they placed second in the qualification's Group D of the women's doubles.
The championship features around 300 of the best players from 28 countries and territories fighting for continental crowns along with the BWF world ranking points. Top seeds in each category are Indonesians Jonatan Christie and Anthony Ginting and defending champion Lee Zii Jia (men’s singles); Akane Yamaguchi of Japan, An Se-young of the Republic of Korea, and Chen Yu Fei, the reigning champion from China (women’s singles).
Men’s doubles title favourites are from Indonesia, Malaysia and Japan. Women’s doubles top candidates are from China, Japan and the Republic of Korea. Meanwhile, mixed doubles top seeds are Chinese and Japanese athletes.
Of the total bonus of US$400,000, the singles winners will take US$30,000 while the doubles champion will enjoy US$31,600.
Last year, Linh was ousted from the first round while her male teammate Nguyen Tien Minh was defeated in the second round.