Wei-ghty draw at Indian Open

The main draw of the $ 120,000 India Open, a Grand Prix Gold event, will begin on Wednesday with a high-profile draw that’s surprised skeptics. Several top players, including world No.1 Lee
Chong Wei and the pin-up boy of badminton, Taufik Hidayat, have turned up despite fears that they would skip the event. The withdrawal of the England team last week did not spark off similar action from any other team, including the Chinese, who have turned up with a strong second-string side.

Indeed, the only player whose withdrawal was a disappointment was Zhu Jingjing, a finalist at the China Open last year, where she beat world No.1 Zhou Mi before falling in the final. Zhu is fast emerging alongside teammates like Jiang Yanjiao, Wang Lin and Wang Yihan as the flagbearers of Chinese women’s singles badminton after the Beijing Olympics.

The men’s singles has a draw of 64, led by Lee Chong Wei. Since late last year the Malaysian has entered five straight Super Series finals, winning three. He comes to Hyderbad with a win over Lin Dan at the Swiss Open behind him.

Apart from Lee, there is the talismanic Taufik Hidayat, whose form and performance are impossible to predict — for he swings to the tunes of his own peculiar moods. But Taufik is also a showman, and an expectant crowd will hope he can remain in the draw at least until the quarterfinals, where he is likely to meet Arvind Bhat.

Bhat himself is no pushover. He acquitted himself well against world champion Lin Dan at the Swiss Open — stretching the eventual winner to three games in the first round. He should be able to beat Taufik if he gets into the quarters. However, in the first round awaits a Chinese of unknown quantity — Du Pengyu. Pengyu himself has a win over Taufik, and Arvind just might have his hands full early on.
Other Indians, such as Anup Sridhar, Chetan Anand and P Kashyap can go as far as the quarterfinals, and maybe even further.

The women’s singles is likely to be a battle between No.4 Pi Hongyan of France and India’s Saina Nehwal. The other challengers, such as Wong Mew Choo (Malaysia) and Maria Yulianti (Indonesia) seemingly haven’t recovered from knee injuries. Japan’s Yu Hirayama might be their closest contender, and perhaps Wang Shixian, a semifinal loser  to Saina at the World
Juniors.

The doubles events have several world and All England champions in the mix. Three Indian pairs — Jwala/ Diju; Rupesh/ Sanave and Jwala/ Shruti — are in the form of their lives. If any of them can go on to win an event it will be one of the biggest moments in Indian badminton.