AFP, Jakarta :
Defending champion Chen Long heads into next week’s badminton world championships in Indonesia as firm favourite, but faces a challenge from a gutsy Lee Chong Wei who has come back strong after a recent doping ban.
Chen, 26, is in superb form having swept four titles this year and enters the Jakarta tournament a convincing top seed, with Danish star Jan O Jorgensen a distant second.
The world number one won’t cross top rivals Lee or Lin Dan in the early stages-they are in different halves of the draw-and is expected to cruise to the quarter-finals without incident.
But from there things could get trickier for the Chinese star with a likely clash against seventh-seeded Dane Viktor Axelsen who nearly overpowered him in the Australian Open finals in May.
Chen prevailed in that contest but it hasn’t all gone smoothly this season, with a series of shock defeats marring his otherwise impressive run, including at the Indonesian and Singapore Opens.
“It doesn’t matter if you are number one or number two. You have to prepare for everything,” he told Indian media after his narrow victory over Axelsen in Sydney.
Much attention will be on Malaysia’s Lee at the week-long tournament, which starts Monday.
He was runner-up in last year’s world championships but was stripped of his silver medal and slapped with an eight-month ban after testing positive for a prohibited substance.
