BADMINTON Preview: Three no. 1-ranked entries in Korea Open

The BWF World Tour swing through Asia continues with the Victor Korea Open in Seoul, a significant tournament with $600,000 in prize money. The top seeds, with their current BWF world rankings, include three of the top-ranked players or teams in the world:

∙ Men’s Singles:
1. Viktor Axelsen (DEN: 1)
2. Kento Momota (JPN: 2)

∙ Men’s Doubles:
1. Takeshi Kamura/Keigo Sonoda (JPN: 4)
2. Sheng Mu Lee/Po-Hsuan Yang (TPE)

∙ Women’s Singles:
1. Akane Yamaguchi (JPN:2)
2. Ratchanok Intanon (THA: 4)

∙ Women’s Doubles:
1. Yuki Fukushima/Sayaka Hirota (JPN: 1)
2. Misaki Matsumoto/Ayaka Takahashi (JPN: 4)

∙ Mixed Doubles:
1. Siwei Zhang/Yaqiong Huang (CHN: 1)
2. Mathias Christiansen/Christinna Pedersen (DEN: 5)

None of the defending champions are entered, except for half of the Mixed Doubles winners; Indonesia’s Praveen Jordan is teamed with a new partners. Other former champs in the tournament include two-time Olympic gold medalist Dan Lin (CHN), who won this tournament in 2002-07-11 and women’s winners Yamaguchi (2016) and Korea’s Ji-Hyun Sung (2013-15).

Look for results here.