Vietnam's top male player Nguyen Tien Minh in a match at the international badminton tournament Yonex SunriseVietnam Open 2010. (Photo: VNA)Vietnam’s badminton players will face strong competition at the International Badminton Championship – Yonex Sunrise Vietnam Open 2015.
The annual tournament featuring five events – men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles – will kick off at the Nguyen Du Gymnasium in District 1, HCM City on August 24 and run through August 30.
The host nation’s main hopefuls are Nguyen Tien Minh in the men’s singles and Vu Thi Trang in the women’s singles.
Minh, ranked No 34 in the world and four-time champion of the tournament, has not taken home the title since 2012. Last year he reached the semi-final stage.
It will not be an easy featfor him to end his disappointing streak this year, given the world’s 13 th best player Tommy Sugiarto and veteran Lee Hyun Il from the Republic of Korea, who ranks 17th globally, will stand between him and the final match.
It will be even harder for Trang, ranked 39th globally, to repeat her fourth place position in last year’s edition of the tournament because her first-round rival will be top-seeded Busanan Ongbumrungpan of Thailand.
This year’s tournament will attract around 347 players from 23 territories and countries across the world with representatives from the Czech Republic, New Zealand and Spain attending for the first time, the HCM City Badminton Federation said at a press briefing on August 18.-VNA
