It’s time! It’s time for the 2018 season to begin, and Europeans are going for gold in Thailand.

The international badminton circuit has been on vacations for weeks, and now it’s time for kicking off the season and the new BWF structure. The first tournament of the year will begin Tuesday in Thailand.

Thailand Masters will be the first of three Asian HSBC BWF Tour tournaments in January. Indonesia Masters and Yonex-Sunrise India Open will follow the first tournament of the year.

European hopes in mixed doubles
In Thailand Masters 2018 four European mixed pairs are seeded, and there is no reason not to believe in European success.

French Ronan Labar/Audrey Fontaine are seeded two, while Dutch Jacco Arends/Selena Piek is seeded four.

Another Dutch pair, Robin Tabeling/Cheryl Seinen, and Vitalij Durkin and Nina Visolva from Russia are seeded 6 and 8.

Home crowd favorites seeded 1
In men’s and women’s singles the two home crowd favorites, Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk and Nitchaon Jindapol are seeded to reach the finals, while no Europeans are seeded in the singles categories.

In men’s doubles Dutch Jacco Arends and Ruben Jille are seeded to reach the quarterfinals, which is also the case for their countrymen Selena Piek/Cheryl Seinen and German Johanna Goliszewski/Lara Kaepplein in the women’s doubles.

You can read much more about the tournament here