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Lauren Smith and Marcus Ellis, England (Photo: Badminton Europe/Mark Phelan)
Lauren Smith: excited to put in a performance to be proud of!
Date: 7/26/2018 7:25 PM
Published by : Tom Leonard
It is one of the main events of the calendar year in the life of a badminton athlete.  The TOTAL BWF World Championships promises to be no easy feat for any player with an impressive lineup of the world's best talent taking to the courts in Nanjing, China.

In the mixed doubles at this year's event, the reigning champions Liliyana Natsir and Tontowi Ahmad have withdrawn from the lineup, allowing for the younger pairing of Jessica Pugh and Ben Lane to qualify and compete for some fantastic experience on the world stage. 

The huge draw includes 64 pairings from around the world, with aa long list of sixteen seeded pairs. China's Siwei Zheng and Yaqiong Huang enter the draw as first seeds, with fellow compatriots Yilyu Wang and Dongping Hunag as second seeds. The highest ranked European pair comes in the form of Mathias Christiansen and Christinna Pedersen of Denmark as fourth seeds, followed closely by England's Chris and Gabrielle Adcock as sixth seeds. 

The English duo will be looking to continue a run of impressive performances in 2018, including a win over the Dane's in the final of this year's European Championships in Huelva, and runners-up in the recent TOYOTA Thailand Open 2018 earlier this month.

Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith will also be looking for more experience and success on the world stage as they enter the draw as 11th seeds. In their first match, they will face either Robin Tabeling and Cheryl Seinen of The Netherlands, or Yugo Kobayashi and Misaki Matsutomo of Japan. The English pair most recently found success in the 2018 Yonex Canada Open, where they defeated German pairing of Mark Lamsfuss and Isabel Herttrich, in emphatic style 21-13 21-4. The German pairing enter the World Championships draw seeded number 15.

England's Lauren Smith flies out to Nanjing early for final preparations:

- It's always a really exciting part of the tournament colander for us all. I'm excited to see the arena and get my final prep in over the weekend. I have had some good preparations over Asia the last few weeks so can hopefully put in a performance I can be proud of, Lauren Smith

The TOTAL BWF World Championships takes place from Monday 30 July - 5 August 2018. You can keep up to date with the latest scores, draws and results here.
©badmintoneurope.com. All rights reserved.

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