World's finest hit town for RP Open

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The bulk of the 2007 Bingo Bonanza Philippine Open Badminton Championships cast arrives Monday, raring to get into workout and hit top form for the $120,000 Grand Prix Gold event firing Wednesday at the Philsports Arena in Pasig City, Metro Manila.

The crack Chinese squad, headed by world No. 2 Chen Hong and No. 5 Bao Chunlai, planes in at 4:45 p.m. aboard CX 919 while the big 37-player Malaysian contingent, led by world No. 3 men’s singles player Lee Chong Wei and defending champion Hafiz Hashim arrives at 7:30 p.m. via PR 337.

They are among the 176 players from more than 300-man cast vying for top honors in five events in the five-day championship expected to hit town in batches today.

Other top players arriving today are Denmark’s world No. 9 Kenneth Jonassen and No. 13 ladies singles player Tine Rasmussen; England’s Andrew Smith, American doubles specialist Tony Gunawan, India’s defending ladies singles champion Saina Nehwal. Five bets from Germany, Italy and Austria planed in Saturday while world No. 4 ladies singles player Xu Huaiwen of Germany, Pi Hongyan of France, the world
No. 6, and reigning Olympic and Asian Games champion Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia arrived yesterday along with 121 others from 18 countries.

The last 45 players, including 20 from South Korea, will arrive tomorrow. 

Thirty five Filipinos, led by last year's mixed doubles runners-up Kennie and Kennevic Asuncion, are seeing action in the event although majority will have to go through the qualifiers set tomorrow.