>>> Teenager swimmer wins Vietnam’s first ticket to Tokyo 2020 Olympics
As the world no. 61, Tien Minh is seeded second in the men’s singles event, behind the Iranian top seed, who is ranked 40th in the BWF world standings.
The Vietnamese shuttler is expected to comfortably ease through the first round as he only meets a qualifier. The true challenge only comes to Tien Minh in the quarterfinals with a possible meeting against the no. 8 seed, Michal Rogalski (Poland, world no. 96), and then possibly the no. 3 seed, Teck Zhi Soo (Malaysia, world no. 69), in the semifinals.
World no. 66 Vu Thi Trang is seeded fifth in the women’s singles event. The Bac Giang-born player is predicted to play a tough opener against world no. 87 Thet Htar Thuzar (Myanmar). Trang’s half also features the presence of fourth-seeded Aliye Demirbag (Turkey, world no. 59) and second-seeded Lianne Tan (Belgium, world no. 49).
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Vu Thi Trang (C) wins the women's singles title at the 2019 Ghana International Series without dropping a set.
The Vietnamese couple recently reaped positive results at the 2019 Ghana International Series. Nguyen Tien Minh shared the men’s singles third prize, while Vu Thi Trang was crowned the women’s singles champion after beating no. 2 seed Mughha Agrey (India) 21-10, 21-6 in the final match.
The two African competitions mentioned above are among a series of international tournaments to be played by Tien Minh and his wife from now until the end of the year in their efforts to accumulate enough points for places in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
