It was a long opening day in Orleans at the 2013 French International (15.000 US Dollars) yesterday, with a large qualifications draw in the men’s singles event. In this category, three rounds of qualification stages were necessary to find the 8 players who were successful in reaching the main stage. Arif Rasidi, Marin Baumann, Sylvain Ternon and Lucas Corvee were the four French men’s singles, joined by Bulgarian Makarski, Moreels of Belgium, Trisnanto of Germany and Italian Ade Chandra.

Click here for the men's singles main draw

In the mixed doubles of the International Challenge, the four qualified pairs come twice from Great Britain, Wales and France. The English duo Briggs/Langley (pictured) duo defeated the third seeds Jansen/Jansen of Germany. And Mathias Quere/Lea Palermo got their qualification ticket after surviving in the biggest match of this qualifications day after in three games 24-22, 19-21, 21-17.

Click here for the mixed doubles main draw

In the women’s doubles qualifications draw, the Scottish-Bulgarian pair of Imogen Bankier/Petya Nedelcheva had no difficulties to defeat French girls Grosjean/Le Moulec in straight games 21-3, 21-6. 

Click here for the women's doubles main draw

French pair Corvee/Leverdez, Indonesian players Rusdianto/Trikusuma, as well as Bösiger/Makarski(SUI/BUL) and Jansen/Okvana (GER/INA) will be playing on Orleans’ playgrounds tomorrow in the main draw of the men's doubles category.

It is the second time, that Orleans is hosting the French International. Orléans is a city in north-central France, about 130 kilometres (81 mi) southwest of Paris.

Click HERE for all results and live scoring from the 2013 French International

Live streaming from two courts is available on the official website

Article by Fanny Parmentier (CLTO Badminton). Photo by Badminton Photo.