World No1 Coming To Auckland
The upcoming US$50,000 KLRC NZ Open badminton Grand Prix event being held next week at the North Shore Events Centre has had some good news after just a couple of months ago the entire tournament was looking in doubt.
Aside from being one of the very few New Zealand sporting events to ever be broadcast live into nations such as China, Indonesia and Malaysia the tournament can now say it has the women’s singles world No1 entered.
Zhou Mi from Hong Kong had initially entered the November 11-15 tournament as the world No3 and defending champion, however she has since risen to the top place in the world. The first time New Zealand has had a current No1 in the world compete.
The 29-year-old has had a great run of results over the past 12 months, recently winning the Macau Open Gold Grand Prix, the China Masters Super-Series, the Indian Gold Grand Prix and the Korea Super-Series. This was all after she was not selected by China which led to her retirement in 2005 and her return to the sport and her change of nationality last year.
The big question for Mi is can she defend her title from 2007. She is in a tight battle with Denmark’s Tine Rassmusen and China’s Lu Lan for the top world ranking. A win in Auckland could see her maintain the No1 ranking while a slip-up at the KLRC could see her fall from the top place.
Also joining Mi are two former men’s singles winners of the tournament, Sairul Amar Ayob of Malaysia who won in 2005 and Tsuen Seng Lee from Taipei the 2006 champion have confirmed their appearances. Ayob is currently ranked at 22 and Lee at 32 in the world.
Waitakere’s Dan Shirley a world championship bronze medalist and silver medalist for New Zealand at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games is returning to top competition for the tournament after retiring a year ago. His former doubles partner John Gordon is also playing top badminton again teaming up with Shirley in the men’s doubles. The pair were previously ranked in the top-10 in the world.
Another highly regarded player to come out of a short retirement is Australia’s Kate Wilson-Smith who is teaming up with Kiwi singles No1 John Moody to take part in a strong mixed draw.
A key clash in the first round of the men’s doubles will feature Shirley and Gordon against two current New Zealand Olympians, Moody and Craig Cooper. The winner is likely to face the top seeds Fernando Kurniawan and Lingga Lie from Indonesia a couple of rounds later.
The KLRC Grand Prix tournament to be held 11-15 November is supported by the North Shore City Council. The finals of the tournament will be broadcast live into China, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia as well as New Zealand.
Play starts at 6pm on Tuesday 11 November with the first round of men’s singles and the mixed doubles.
Media Please Note: An Interview time will be set aside on Tuesday in the early afternoon for Zhou Mi and other international stars, as well as New Zealand best players. The time for this is to be confirmed, but it should be around 1pm.