GB duo face old rivals
Chris Adcock and Imogen Bankier face a reunion with world champions Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei in London.
Last Updated: 23/07/12 4:16pm
Chris Adcock and Imogen Bankier, Great Britain's top badminton medal hopes, face a reunion with world champions Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei at the Olympic Games.
The Anglo-Scottish pairing, ranked 10th in the world, were beaten by the Chinese duo in the mixed doubles final of last year's World Championships, which were held at the same Wembley Arena venue.
Adcock and Bankier will also face Alexandr Nikolaenko and Valeria Sorokina of Russia and Germany's Michael Fuchs and Birgit Michels in Group A of the competition's round-robin stage.
The group stage is a new element for the London Games instead of the event being a traditional straight knockout competition. The top two pairs from each of the four groups will progress to the quarter-finals.
Encouragement
Adcock and Bankier will take encouragement from their recent record against top seeds Zhang and Zhao, having beaten them twice since their World Championship loss.
The British duo announced themselves on the world stage in 2011, beating four seeded pairs en route to the final at Wembley.
Meanwhile, there was an eye-catching draw in the men's singles as Ireland's Scott Evans was paired with reigning champion and favourite Lin Dan of China in a two-man Group P.
The match-up could not have been tougher for world number 76 Evans with Lin widely regarded by as the greatest player of all time although he is seeded second to Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei,.
Britain's entrant Rajiv Ouseph, the 15th seed, was paired with Sweden's Henri Hurskainen and Kevin Cordon of Guatemala.
Difficult draw
In the women's event Scotland's Susan Egelstaff was given a difficult draw against 12th seed Sayaka Sato of Japan and Slovenian Maja Tvrdy in Group H. Chloe Magee of Ireland, the world number 44, will face Pi Hongyan of France, a quarter-finalist in 2008, and Egypt's Hadia Hosny in Group I.
There are 16 groups in the singles competitions with only the winners going through to the knock-out stages.
The competitions begin on Saturday with the playing schedule due to be announced later this week.
