VietNamNet Bridge – According to the draw result on July 23, Vietnam’s top badminton player Nguyen Tien Minh is in group D, with Parupalli Kashyap of India and Yuhan Tan of Belgium.

The draw was held at the Main Press Centre in the Olympic Park at 4pm, July 23 (Hanoi time) in London, with five categories: the men’s and women’s singles and doubles and mixed tournaments. Vietnam has only one representative, Tien Minh, who will compete at the men’s singles category.

Ten of the 40 male players are selected as seeds. Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei is the number one, followed by China’s Lindan. Vietnam’s Tien Minh is the 10th seed.

Athletes are divided into 16 groups. Some groups have only two players. Tien Minh is in the same group with Parupalli Kashyap of India and Yuhan Tan of Belgium.

Tien Minh used to play against Parupalli Kashyap five times, with two wins and three loses. Yunhan Tan currently ranks 50th in the international ratings.

This is the second time of Tien Minh winning a card to the Olympics. Four years ago, he was defeated in the first game and immediately rejected.

In the women's singles draw, world champion and number one seed Wang Yihan of China will face the unseeded Michelle Li of Canada in her opening match of the Games.

In the men's singles, Olympic champion and number two seed Lin Dan of China will face unseeded Scott Evans of Ireland in his first match of the competition.

Number one seed Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia will play Finland's Ville Lang, who progressed to the third round at Beijing 2008.

Third seed Chen Long of China drew Boonsak Ponsana of Thailand, who is in good form after winning the Singapore Open in June, while number four seed, China's Chen Jin, will play Przemyslaw Wacha of Poland.

In the mixed doubles, top seeds Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei of China will face Great Britain's medal hopefuls Chris Adcock and Imogen Bankier in the group stage of the tournament.

Adcock and Bankier were runners-up to Zhang and Zhao at the 2011 world championships at Wembley Arena, but the British pair have since beaten their Chinese opponents twice in three meetings.

In the men's doubles, the Beijing 2008 Olympic silver medalists, four-times world champions and number one seeds Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng of China, should progress to the knockout stage after they were drawn with pairings from Australia, Chinese Taipei and Germany.

On the other side of the draw, number two seeds Chung Jae Sung and Lee Yong Dae of Korea will feature alongside 2005 world champions Howard Bach and Tony Gunawan of the USA, Malaysian battlers Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong, and Japan's Naoki Kawamae and Shoji Sato.

In the women's doubles, China will be seeking their fifth consecutive Olympic title from their top pairing, world champions and number one seeds Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang.

The draw results for the men’s singles:

Group A: Lee Chong Wei (1), Ville Lang

Group B: Simon Santoso (9), Michael Lachnsteiner, Raul Must

Group C: Kenichi Tago (8), Niluka Karunaratne

Group D: Nguyen Tien Minh (10), Kashyap Parupalli, Yuhan Tan

Group E: Chen Long (3), Boonsak Ponsana

Group F: Wong Wing Ki (16), Edwin Ekiring, Brice Leverdez

Group G: Peter Gade (5), Pedro Martins

Group H: Son Wan Ho (13), Vladimir Ivanov, Hsu Jen Hao

Group I: Jan O Jorgensen (12), Misha Zilberman, Derek Wong

Group J: Lee Hyun Il (7), Rodrigo Pacheco Carrillo

Group K: Marc Zwiebler (14), Mohamed Ajfan Rasheed, Dymtro Zavadsky

Group L: Chen Jin (4), Wacha Przemyslaw

Group M: Rajiv Ouseph (15), Henri Hurskainen, Kevin Cordon

Group N: Sho Sasaki (6), Virgil Soeroredjo

Group O: Taufik Hidayat (11), Pablo Abian, Petr Koukal

Group P: Lin Dan (2), Scott Evans


Compiled by Thanh Tung