Following a four-year COVID-enforced wait, the VICTOR Hong Kong Open 2023 resumes with a strong field of world class athletes.

Get to know some intriguing information about the Super 500 tournament.

• None of this year’s remaining top seeds have won their events.
• China are the sole country to complete a clean sweep, doing so three times (2005, 2011, 2012).
• In the last 10 years, only three countries have toasted men’s singles (Malaysia, Korea, Hong Kong China) and men’s doubles champions (Korea, Indonesia, Japan).
• Lee Cheuk Yiu is the sole defending champion participating.
• If he keeps his crown, he will become first back-to-back men’s singles king since Lee Chong Wei in 2010. It is the longest category not to see a holder defend his title.
• Ko Sung Hyun (2010), Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan (2014), Tai Tzu Ying (2014, 2016-2017), Carolina Marin (2015), Ng Ka Long Angus (2016), Nozomi Okuhara and Yuki Fukushima/Sayaka Hirota (2018) are the other nine former winners competing this year.
• India’s solitary men’s singles title came at the very first edition in 1982 courtesy of Prakash Padukone, whose protégé Lakshya Sen is their only seeded hope (8).
• Indonesia have not celebrated a men’s singles champion since Budi Santoso in 1998. Two seeds Anthony Sinisuka Ginting (2) and Jonatan Christie (5) lead their charge this time.
• Indonesia are also yet to produce winners in the women’s disciplines but have seeded players in both – Gregoria Mariska Tunjung (5) and Apriyani Rahayu/Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti (7).
• On the other hand, Malaysia, who have never witnessed a women’s doubles titlists, can count on sixth seeds Pearly Tan/Thinaah Muralitharan.
• They have also not had success in men’s and mixed doubles since 1999.
• Their best chance of ending that drought is in men’s doubles, where they have two seeded pairs – Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik (2) and Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi (4).
• If she wins a fourth title, second seed Tai Tzu Ying will be the most successful women’s singles player.
• Fourth seed Ratchanok Intanon meanwhile, has the incentive of becoming only the second Thai shuttler to triumph after fellow women’s singles star Sujitra Ekmongkolpaisarn in 2001.
• Likewise, top seed Viktor Axelsen will expand the Danish men’s singles winners list by replicating Peter Gade’s 1997 victory.
• Men’s doubles is the category the Danes have gone the longest without winning, with Jesper Helledie/Steen Fladberg’s 1985 title their solitary one. They have a seeded pair this time – Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen (7).
• With Yuta Watanabe/Arisa Higashino’s withdrawal, second seeds Thom Ghicquel/Delphine Delrue could become the first ever French shuttlers to win this tournament.

Standout Stat: Chinese women’s pairs have won 14 of the 16 editions starting 2003 – highest success rate of 87.5 per cent across the five categories in that period.