Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia’s world No. 1 men’s singles player Lee Chong Wei has received a No. 1 seeding for the men’s draw in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
The Badminton World Federation (BWF) said that the seedings were based on July 21st, 2016 world rankings for all the confirmed Olympics qualifiers and will be used for the Olympic drawing on July 26.
Each singles category has 13 seeds. Lee Chong Wei was followed in the seedings by two-time World Champion Chen Long as the No. 2 seed and two-time Olympic champion Lin Dan as the third seed.
The other men’s singles seeds were: Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen (4) and Jan Jorgensen (5), Chinese Taipei’s Chou Tien Chen (6), Indonesia’s Tommy Sugiarto (7), Korea’s Son Wan Ho (8), India’s Kidambi Srikanth (9), Hong Kong’s Hu Yun (10) and Ng Ka Long (11), Germany’s Marc Zwiebler (12) and England’s Rajiv Ouseph (13).
Carolina Marin of Spain was seeded No. 1 in women’s singles, followed closely by two Chinese women’s players including Wang Yihan (No. 2), and defending champion Li Xuerui (No. 3).
Thailand’s young badminton star Ratchanok Intanon who won 3 consecutive Superseries titles in 3 weeks early this year was seeded No. 4; Other women’s singles seeded players were India’s Saina Nehwal (5), Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara (6), Korea’s Sung Ji Hyun (7) and Chinese Taipei’s Tai Tzu Ying (9), India’s PV Sindhu (9), Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi (10), Great Britain’s Kirsty Gilmour (11), Thailand’s Porntip Buranaprasetsuk (12) and Korea’s Bae Yeon Ju (13).
There are only four seeds in the doubles categories, including men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles.
World number one men’s pair, Lee Yong Dae/Yoo Yeon Seong of South Korea became the top seeds, while Indonesia’s World Champions Mohamad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan were ranked No. 2. Another South Korean pair Kim Gi Jung/Kim Sa Rang and China’s Fu Haifeng/Zhang Nan were seeded third and fourth respectively.
Japan’s Misaki Matsutomo/Ayaka Takahashi, China’s Tang Yuanting/Yu Yang, Indonesia’s Greysia Polii/Nitya Krishinda Maheswari and South Korea’s Jung Kyung Eun/Shin Seung Chan were the top 4 seeds in women’s doubles.
Zhang Nan/Zhao Yunlei of China who will try to defend their mixed doubles title in Rio, were seeded No. 1. Korea’s Ko Sung Hyun/Kim Ha Na, Indonesia’s Tontowi Ahmad/Liliyana Natsir, and Denmark’s Joachim Fisher Nielsen/Christinna Pedersen were seeded second, third and fourth in the mixed doubles category.
