KUCHING: 34-year-old veteran Lee Hyun Il from South Korea will lead the charge in the men’s singles main draw in the coming Maybank Kuching International Badminton Challenge at Stadium Perpaduan in Petra Jaya from Nov 11-16.
The world number 60 player is expected to face stiff challenges from other contenders including Tan Chun Seang and Zulkifli Zulfadli both of Malaysia, and Phetpradab Khosit from Thailand.
Tan is currently ranked number 70 in the world while Zulkifli and Phetpradab are number 73 and 92 respectively.
Seventy-eight players are vying for the men’s singles crown and they come from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, India, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, South Korea, Australia, Japan and United Kingdom.
47 players are accepted in the main draw while 31 have to go through the qualifying rounds.
The women’s singles competition shall see 23 players already in the main draw while 16 will have to play in the qualifying round.
Sarawak Badminton Association (SBA) secretary Abdul Hadi Datuk Abdul Kadir yesterday anticipated that this year’s event will be exciting particularly with the presence of Lee.
“We are very pleased with his participation and hopefully this will encourage other players to step up their game in light of Lee’s stature as the reigning Asian Games champion,” he said.
Lee was a member of the South Korea team which won the team gold medal at the 2002 and 2014 Asian Games. In the recent edition at Incheon, he was recalled from retirement and heroically clinched the deciding point to help his team upset China.
Meanwhile, former national badminton player Tan Chun Seang’s best performance so far was reaching the semi-finals of the this year’s Vietnam Open GP Gold Championship and in December last year, he defeated former 2009 and 2011 SEA Games champion Simon Santoso of Indonesia to reach the final of the same event.
He was the former 2012 Bulgaria Open singles and doubles champion but was the losing finalist in the 2012 Norwegian International Badminton Championship.
In 2007, Tan won the Singapore International Open and Vietnam International Open championship.
This year’s Maybank Kuching International Challenge is classified as a Level IV World Tournament sanctioned by Badminton World Federation and Badminton Asia Confederation with the total prize money of US$15,000 (RM48,000).
Players all over the world are competing for valuable grand prix points offered by the six-day tournament which is being held for the third consecutive year in Kuching.
Due to limited seats, SBA is limiting the entries by issuing tickets and those interested are requested to contact the association’s office at 082-579598 or 016-8938952.