Badminton World Championship 2011 to start soon

The BWF badminton world championship 2011 tournament (officially known as the Yonex BWF World Championships 2011) will be held from the 8-Aug-2011 to 14-Aug-2011 at the Wembley Arena in London, UK.

The Wembley arena hall in London, is also the location where the next year's 2012 London Olympic badminton games will be held, and hence players competing for the Badminton world champion title would also be looking forward to getting acclimatised to the conditions at the hall, as a part of their Olympic games 2012 preparation.

For India, Saina Nehwal who is the main hope in this world badminton championship 2011 tournament, is seeded 6th in the tournament. Saina is also currently ranked at no.6 in the BWF world rankings which are updated every week.

Decent Draw for Saina Nehwal

The draws for the world badminton championships 2011 have been released, and Saina has got a bye in the first round and in the 2nd round will be facing the winner of the match between world no.53 Chloe Magee of Ireland and world no.31 Adrianti Firdasari of Indonesia. Adrianti who is likely to move ahead to the second round is a dangerous opponent who has the potential to upset any top player, and Saina cannot afford to be complacent if she is matched against Adrianti in the 2nd round.

In case Saina manages to get past the 2nd round, she could potentially play against 14th seed Pui Yin Pip of Hong Kong in the 3rd round. The subsequent challenges are even tougher for Saina. She could potentially be matched against 3rd seed Xin Wang in the quarterfinals, 2nd seed Yihan Wang in the semi-finals, and the top seed Shixian Wang in the final match which will decide who the 2011 Badminton world champion will be.

However all this potential tie-ups based on seedings is just hypothetical, and in reality all these top players who are playing at the badminton world championships have the potential to beat any of the other players on their good day. Much will depend on how players actually perform during the big matches. This is where temperament plays so crucial a role.

Indian challengers in the men's singles event - Ajay Jayaram and P. Kashyap

Amongst the men, the Indian contenders for the world championship title are Ajay Jayaram and P. Kashyap, who are currerntly ranked at no. 35 and no. 28 respectively in the world badminton rankings. Ajay is drawn to play against 15th seed Kenichi Tago of Japan in the first round, while Kashyap will be opening his world campaign with his match against Dieter Domke of Germany.

Indian challenge in the doubles sections at the BWF world badminton championships 2011:

Rupesh Kumar & Sanave Thomas currently ranked no.34 in the world rankings would be spearheading India's challenge in the mens doubles section. They will be playing against the no.29 ranked German pair of Michael Fuchs & Oliver Roth in the first round.

The other Indian doubles pair in the fray is Pranav Chopra & Tarun Kona ranked no.74 in the world rankings, who have got an entry into the tournament. They will be playing against the Taiwanese pair of Hung Ling CHEN & Yu Lang LIN in their opening encounter.

In the women's doubles, Jwala Gutta & Ashwini Ponnappa will clash against Eva Lee & Paula Lynn Obanana of the USA in the first round. If they clear this test, they will potentially be up against the 2nd seeded pair of Wen Hsing CHENG & Yu Chin CHIEN of Taiwan.

In the mixed doubles event, India's top pair of Jwala Gutta & V.Diju is seeded 16th in the tournament and have got a decent draw with a first round bye. Diju has been out in action for quite some time now (since the CWG games in Dec-2010 which he decided to skip for getting treated for a back injury). It would be interesting to see how the pair performs after such a long break from competitive match play.

All eyes will be on the World no. 1 - Lee Chong Wei

In the men's section, Malaysian badminton fans would be eagerly looking forward to the performance of their star player Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia who has a very realistic chance of becoming the first ever world badminton champion from Malaysia. He is currently in tremendous form, winning almost every tournament that he has played in the recent times.

By the way, fans are also looking forward to Lee Chong Wei's autobiography which will be released after this championships tournament is over.

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