Gopichand seeded fifth in Singapore Open

All England champion Pulella Gopichand will face Lin Dan of China in the first round of the Singapore Open 2001, which starts on August 15, at the Singapore Indoor stadium.

The Indian ace, who lost to Indonesian Marleve Mainaky in the quarter-finals of the World Grand Prix finals, is seeded fifth.

The other Indians to get a direct entry in the men's singles main draw are Chetan Anand, Abhinn Shyam Gupta, Sachin Ratti and Thomas Sanave.

Anand, who won the Asian Satellite tournament in Bangalore on Saturday, will face Kuan Beng Hong of Malaysia; Abhinn will meet the third seed Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia; Sachin Ratti will face Anggun Nugroho of Indonesia while Thomas will face James Chua of Malaysia in the first round.

Another Indian, V Diju will play in the qualifiers, where he has a first round bye.

In the men's doubles, V Diju and Thomas Sanave will face the Japanese pair of Yousuke Nakanishi and Shinya Ohtsuka, while Vijaydeep Singh and Markose Bristow will face second seeds Wijaya Candra and Sigit Budiarto in the first round of the main draw.

China’s world number one and former Asian champion Chen Hong is the top seed. Denmark’s second seed Peter Gade has withdrawn from the event due to injury.

Taufik Hidayat, as the third seed, will be aiming to come back after injury denied him a strong chance of the world title in Seville. But the man to watch will be the fourth seed Marleve Mainaky of Indonesia. The Indonesian has been in a good touch recently, having won the Indonesian Open and finishing runner-up at the World Grand Prix finals, and seems to be very comfortable with the new 5x7 scoring system.