Following their five medals at the European Games, there are a few English players that will be confident of going far at this week’s Canada Open.
The tournament in Calgary is running from the 2nd to the 7th July with some of the continent’s top players taking part, all hoping for success.
England’s main hopes come from Ben Lane and Jessica Pugh who are the top seeds in the Mixed Doubles.
The pair come into this one on a high after winning themselves the Spanish International just a few weeks ago and will be hoping to continue that form with a good run in this event as well.
Lane and Pugh are currently ranked 21st in the World and will take on a qualifier in the opening round.
Elsewhere, Rajiv Ouseph is both England and Europe’s highest seeded player in the Men’s Singles.
Ouseph is the 5th seed and will believe that this Super 100 event is a great chance to move himself up the rankings as he looks to claim his first medal of the year.
Europe looking strong in Mixed Doubles
As well as Lane and Pugh there are a number of other European Mixed Doubles pairs that are looking strong ahead of the tournament, with two French pairs also seeded highly in the Mixed Doubles.
Thom Gicquel and Delphine Delrue are seeded 2nd for the tournament and will be looking to go all the way after coming up short in the European Games last week.
Giquel and Delrue had a good showing in Minsk but they were beaten by the eventual winners in England’s Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith in the Semi-Final stage so will be looking to go one step further in this one.
Ronan Labar and Anne Tran, however, will be looking for the same result that they’ve been having so far this year.
The French pair won their last tournament together at the beginning of May in the Li-Ning Denmark Challenge and come into this one as the 6th seeds, so will be confident of doing the same in Canada.
Denmark also have a pair in Mathias Christiansen and Alexandra Boje who will be hoping to take home the title.
The Danes are seeded 5th for the event and will take on the hometown pair of Ty Alexander Lindeman and Rachel Honderich (Canada) in the opening round.
See the full draw for the Canadian Open here.
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