After an intense and long-lasting qualification day, it is now time to start the main draw at the VICTOR Swedish Open 2023 in Uppsala, Sweden. Get ready for another long day of action!
Thursday was a day of mixed feelings but many great experiences for the Swedish shuttlers playing on home soil. In the first round of the qualification, 20 matches were played with Swedish players on the court and three of those contenders eventually made it to the main draw at their home tournament.
However, there will be more home crowd favourites getting to action today — the matches of Felix Burestedt are eagerly awaited in Uppsala. The best singles player from Sweden announced the end of his career recently and will play the Swedish Open for the last time, and he hopes to leave with a deep run on home soil. Today, the second-seeded player in men’s singles will face Joel König from Switzerland in the opening round.
All the other top players will also be having their debut in this year’s edition in the IFU Arena on Friday. In women’s singles, Estonia’s Kristin Kuuba as top seed, and Polina Buhrova from Ukraine will be two of many promising Europeans to follow during the day.
They will all have to compete with many strong Asian players that once again join the European Circuit in big numbers. “There are a lot of good players here. Back in the days, we had to travel to Asia to play these matches and now we have them in our own backyard”, stated BEC Center of Excellence Coach Dennis Christensen and added: “We want to beat them at some point. Right now, they are playing faster. Some of them are playing a lot faster than my players are used to. That’s a good experience for us.”