WATCH: World Champion Loh Kean Yew spars with World No. 1 Tai Tzu-ying

The excitement of the badminton season kick-starting anew is already being felt in the air and what better way to set the trailer for the upcoming weeks of some intense badminton action than to see the reigning World Champion Loh Kean Yew given a run for his money by reigning women's World No. 1 Tai Tzu-Ying?

Ahead of the German Open 2022, the BWF Super 300 tournament that marks the beginning of the European leg of the tour that has the All England Open, the Swiss Open and the Orleans Masters in back-to-back weeks, Loh Kean Yew was seen training with Tai Tzu-ying.

Singapore's Loh Kean Yew (LKY) is on a roll of his own and has shot to success quite recently with his deft racquet skills as he took the world by storm at the World Championships in Huelva, Spain in the December of 2021, before going on to claim the crown.

However, LKY has since then only played one tournament - the India Open Super 500 in New Delhi this January, where he lost out closely to a feisty and determined Lakshya Sen in a mouth-watering final clash. 

Into the European leg of the tour, LKY was treated with some classic Tai Tzu-ying deceptive rallies as the Tokyo and World Championships silver medallist and current World No. 1 from Chinese Taipei seemed to be having fun sparring with Loh Kean Yew.

Loh Kean Yew has been handed a relatively easy first-round draw with World No. 33 Canadian Brian Yang to square off against.

On the other hand, Tai Tzu-ying, who ended PV Sindhu's quest for gold at the Tokyo Olympics by handing her a sore defeat in the semi-finals will be facing off against World No. 35 American Iris Wang. In fact, Sindhu is also expected to cross paths with Tai Tzu in the quarter-finals of the German Open 2022, should all go well.