The Odense Sports Park will be stop no. 20 (out of 27) on the 2018 BWF World Tour, for the Danisa Denmark Open, which started with qualifying on Tuesday.
This is an ancient tournament, dating back to 1938 and an important stop for many of the world’s great players. How good is this year’s tournament? The nos. 1 and 2-ranked players or teams in the BWF World Rankings are all entered! The top seeds (with world rankings):
∙ Men’s Singles:
1. Viktor Axelsen (DEN: 2)
2. Kento Momota (JPN: 1)
∙ Men’s Doubles:
1. Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo (INA: 1)
2. Junhui Li/Yuchen Liu (CHN: 2)
∙ Women’s Singles:
1. Tzu Ying Tai (TPE: 1)
2. Akane Yamaguchi (JPN: 2)
∙ Women’s Doubles:
1. Yuki Fukushima/Sayaka Hirota (JPN: 1)
2. Qingchen Chen/Yifan Jia (CHN: 3)
∙ Mixed Doubles:
1. Siwei Zheng/Yaqiong Huang (CHN: 1)
2. Yilyu Wang/Dongping Huang (CHN: 2)
Also back for 2018 are all of the defending champions from 2018, none of whom are in the top-two seedings: Srikanth Kidambi (IND: men’s Singles), Ratchanok Intanon (THA: women’s Singles), Cheng Liu/Nan Zhang (CHN: men’s Doubles), So-Hee Lee/Seung Chan Shin (KOR: women’s Doubles) and Chun Man Tang/Ying Suet Tse (HKG: Mixed Doubles).
Multiple other former champions are in the field, including two Olympic men’s Singles winners, Long Chen (CHN) and Dan Lin (CHN); Chen has won this tournament in 2011-13-14-15 and Lin won in 2004-05-07. In the women’s Singles, Yamaguchi won in 2016.
The tournament offers $775,000 in total prize money, with semifinals on Saturday and the finals on Sunday. Look for the scores and schedules here.
