Sattawat Pongnairat and Chen Long lose the World Championship lottery

The Badminton World Federation (BWF) has now published the draws for the 2013 BWF World Badminton Championships, which will be held next month in Guangzhou, China.  Chief among the results was the placement of the now-unseeded, two-time Olympic gold medallist Lin Dan, who was admitted to the event on a wild card after allowing his world ranking to drop to #100.

Lin will play his first match against Sattawat Pongnairat of the United States.  If he continues to win, as expected, his first seeded opponent will be Kenichi Tago of Japan and only after winning the likely quarter-final against world #2 compatriot Chen Long can he play for the right to play a second World Championship final against favourite Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia.

There are numerous interesting first-round matches in men’s singles, but two cases where strong, unseeded players take on seeds in the opening round involve Hans-Kristian Vittinghus against Tommy Sugiarto and Son Wan Ho against Du Pengyu.  In the other four disciplines, all of the seeded players have first-round byes but women’s singles top seed Li Xuerui is likely to play her first match against compatriot Jiang Yanjiao.  In women’s doubles, overwhelming favourites Wang Xiaoli / Yu Yang managed to avoid Tian Qing / Zhao Yunlei – the only pair present that has ever beaten them – until the final.

Click here to see the complete draws