Lin Dan finds an easy draw in the German Open Grand Prix Gold – Badminton news
China’s top shuttler Lin Dan remained lucky in finding an easy Men’s Singles draw in the German Open Grand Prix Gold, which will kick off from today, on January 28, at Mulheim, Germany.
The World Number Two, Lin, who is also the ruling Olympic and World Champion, is the favourite to win the tournament as the World Number One Lee Chong Wei, number three Chen Long and number four Peter Hoeg Gade have given this event a miss.
Being the top seed in the Men’s Singles draw of German Open, Lin will face a qualifier in the opening round. In the following round of this event, he will take on the winner of England’s Carl Baxter and Russia’s Ivan Sozonov.
In the Men’s Singles third round, Lin is expected to meet either Chinese Taipei’s World Number 34 Hsueh Hsuan Yi or Spain’s World Number 22 Pablo Abian, who is seeded at number 14 in the Men’s Singles draw of the tournament.
If things proceed according to the paper, Lin will take on either the seventh seed Marc Zwiebler of Germany or Denmark’s Hans Kristian Vittinghus, who has been seeded at number 10 in the draw.
At the semi-final stage of the tournament, the top seed is expected to face either the fourth seed Lee Hyun Il of Korea, who is currently World Number Seven, or another younger Chinese shuttler Wang Zhengming.
Lin always remained struggling against Lee Hyun as they always play at the same level of the game.
However, if the top seed overcomes his opponent in the semi-final clash, he is more likely to face his team-mate and World Number Five Chen Jin, who is the second seed in the Men’s Singles draw of the tournament.
However, the draw is a bit tricky for Jin who has been placed at the bottom half. He will be facing Japan’s Sho Sasaki who is World Number Six or Indonesia’s World Number 11 Simon Santoso, who is the fifth seed in Men’s Singles draw of German Open.
Jin desperately needs ranking points in order to get into the top four positions in the Men’s Singles world rankings which will help him to qualify for 2012 London Olympics.
Nevertheless, the top seed Lin is the favourite to win the Men’s Singles title in the tournament as he has an upper hand over all his potential competitors in the upper half of the draw.
A talented shuttler in the world of Badminton, Lee Hyun, is the only opponent who can spoil the party of Lin as the Korean has an extensive experience of playing at international level and he also knows the tactics of his higher ranked Chinese shuttler.
However, if Lin reaches in the final, he is expected to win the title no matter who steps up from the bottom half of draw to face him in the title match.
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