Chris Doran and Rachael Iles are the top seeds for the qualifying day of the Mark Bates Ltd National Championships, with the draw and schedule now published.
The qualifying competition is now part of the same competition as the main draw, and takes place on Friday 20 March at David Ross Sports Village in Nottingham.
With a place in the knockout stage of the competition, beginning on Saturday 21 March – and a possible meeting with one of the biggest stars in the country – there is sure to be plenty of high-quality action.
The opening day on the Friday – when the qualification tournament will take place – is free of charge to all spectators, all day.
Weekend tickets are great value – from £5 for the Saturday and from £7.50 for Finals Day on Sunday.
Doran is followed in the Men’s Singles seedings by Jakub Piwowar, Ben Piggott – won won last year’s qualifying tournament – and Shaquille Webb-Dixon. Isaac Kingham, Shayan Siraj and Josh Bennett are also highly ranked.
Iles is the top-ranked player in the Women’s Singles, ahead of Rebecca Savage, who won last year’s Qualifying Tournament.
Mabel Shute, Eva Eccle, Letitia McMullan and Alyssa Nguyen are the other top-ranked players in their respective groups.
134 men and 33 women are competing. The competition gets under way at David Ross Sports Village at 9am on Friday 20 March.
The draw has also been made for the group stage of the para competitions, which take place on the Saturday. 2016 Paralympic champion Will Bayley is in Group 1 of the Class 6-10 competition, along with Max Flint and Daniel Thomson. Group 2 features Billy Shilton, Shae Thakker and Bailey Page.
In the Class 2-5 competition, Romain Simon, Andrew Green and Bethany Kelf are in Group 1, with Thomas Hepburn, Jack Sibleston and Lauren Jones in Group 2.