Thai aces to square off in first round

Thai aces to square off in first round

GUANGZHOU: Thai stars Ratchanok Intanon and Busanan Ongbamrungphan are in the same group at this week's BWF World Tour Finals following Monday's draw.

The other two players in Group B of the women's singles competition are Japan's Nozomi Okuhara and two-time season-finale winner Tai Tzu-ying of Taiwan.

Group A features defending champion Pusarla V Sindhu of India, Japan's Akane Yamaguchi and home players Chen Yufei and He Bingjiao.

The top two players and pairs in each group of the five categories advance to the semi-finals.

The tournament starts on Wednesday when 2013 world champion Ratchanok takes on Busanan.

The Thai duo helped their country win the women's team title at the SEA Games in the Philippines last week.

In the mixed doubles, top seeds Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Thailand were drawn in Group A with defending champions Wang Yilyu and Huang Dongping of China, Seo Seung-Jae and Chae Yu-Jung of South Korea, and Malaysia's Chan Peng Soon and Goh Liu Ying of Malaysia.

In Group B are China's Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong, Indonesian pairs of Praveen Jordan and Melati Daeva Oktavianti and Hafiz Faizal and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja, and Japan's Yuta Watanabe and Arisa Higashino.

In the women's doubles, Thailand's Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai are in Group B with world champions Mayu Matsumoto and Wakana Nagahara of Japan, and South Korean pairs Kim So-Yeong and Kong Hee-Yong and Lee So-Hee and Shin Seung-Chan.

Chinese pairs Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan and Du Yue and Li Yinhui find themselves in Group A with Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota of Japan and Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu of Indonesia.

In the men's singles, two-time world champion Kento Momota of Japan, who fell at the final hurdle last year, will have to contend with Indonesia's Jonatan Christie, Wang Tzu-wei of Taiwan and Denmark's Anders Antonsen in Group A.

Group B has four evenly matched contestants in Chou Tien-chen of Taiwan, Chen Long of China, Viktor Axelsen of Denmark and Anthony Ginting of Indonesia.

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