Kuala Lumpur: The draws for all five categories of the 2021 Singapore Open have been released on Tuesday.
The World No. 1 Kento Momota’s title defense may be under threat early on as he has been drawn to meet World No. 11 Shi Yuqi of China in the first round.
The No. 1 seed Japanese could meet 8th seed Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia in the quarter-finals.
Meanwhile, Lee will open against Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia and could potentially face World No. 24 Kunlavut Vitidsarn of Thailand or World No. 26 Lu Guangzu of China in the second round.
Another Malaysian men’s singles player, Daren Liew, faces the young Singaporean player – Loh Kean Yew in the first round and could take on No. 7 seed Jonatan Christie of Indonesia in the second round.
In women’s singles, a potential blockbuster is looming for the two-time Singapore Open winner, Tai Tzu Ying of Taiwan in the quarter-finals against seventh seed PV Sindhu, who won the biggest title of her career at the 2019 World Championships. Tai has beaten Sindhu once this season, it was at the women’s singles Group B match of 2020 HSBC BWF World Tour Finals where the Taiwanese beat the Indian 19-21, 21-12, 21-17.
The women’s singles No. 2 seed, Chen Yu Fei, who will be playing in her first major tournament since last year’s All England, was in the bottom half of women’s draw together with No. 4 seed Carolina Marin, No. 5 seed Akane Yamaguchi, and No. 6 seed Ratchanok Intanon.
Malaysia’s men’s doubles pairs, however, were handed tough draws as World No. 9 Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik will start against World No. 12 Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen of Denmark; World No. 13 Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong to take on World No. 8 Choi Solgyu/Seo Seung Jae in the first round; while World No. 15 Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi to kick off their campaigns against World No. 2 Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia.
