KUALA LUMPUR: Men's doubles pair Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik can breathe a sigh of relief after receiving a favourable draw for the Paris Olympics badminton competition.
Their only main obstacles in Group A are China's world No. 1 and top seeds Liang Wei Keng-Wang Chang.
But the Malaysian duo should have no problems beating England's world No. 18 Ben Lane-Sean Vendy and Canada's world No. 32 Adam Dong-Nyl Yakura.
Former world champions Aaron-Wooi Yik need only to win two matches in their group to be assured of a quarter-final berth.
Wei Keng-Wang Chang have a 6-2 lead in their head-to-head record against Tokyo 2020 bronze medallists Aaron-Wooi Yik.
However, in their last meeting, world No 5 Aaron-Wooi Yik won an epic 55-minute battle 15-21, 21-12, 21-17 against the Chinese duo in the Thomas Cup semi-finals in May. However, Malaysia lost the tie 3-1.
The Olympic draw for the men's doubles was delayed to today from last Friday after the world sports court (CAS) instructed the Badminton World Federation (BWF) to include French pair Lucas Corvee-Ronan Labar into the competition.
Corvee-Ronan Labar originally missed the boat for Paris after the BWF adjusted the world rankings in April to rectify a points calculation error last year. They successfully appealed to CAS.
As a result the Olympic men's doubles competition will feature 17 pairs instead of 16, with three groups containing four pairs and one containing five.
The draw was held at the Badminton World Federation's headquarters in Kuala Lumpur yesterday,
Men's doubles groupings
Group A
Liang Wei Keng-Wang Chang (China)
Ben Lane-Sean Vendy (England)
Adam Dong-Nyl Yakura (Canada)
Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik (Malaysia)
Group B
Kang Min Hyuk-Seo Seung Jae (South Korea)
Christo Popov-Toma Junior Popov (France)
Supak Jomkoh-Kittinupong Kedren (Thailand)
Ondrej Kral-Adam Mendrek (Czech Republic)
Group C
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty (India)
Corvee-Ronan Labar (France)
Fajar Alfian-Muhammad Rian Ardianto (Indonesia)
Mark Lamfus-Marvin Siedel (Germany)
Group D
Kim Astrup-Anders Skaarup Rasmussen (Denmark)
Liu Yu Chen-Ou Xuan Yi (China)
Lee Yang-Wang Chi Lin (Taiwan)
Takuro Hoki-Yugo Kobayashi (Japan)
Vinson Chiu-Joshua Yuan (USA)