Draw made for wheelchair tennis at Asian Para Games

The winners of the men’s singles and women’s singles will earn automatic qualification for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games

The Incheon 2014 Asian Para Games in South Korea, between 18-24 October, sees the quest for wheelchair tennis qualification slots at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games begin, with Japanese players heading the seeding for five of the six medal events.

Forty eight players from 11 countries will aim for places on the podium in the men’s singles and doubles, the women’s singles and doubles and the quad singles and doubles at the Asian Para Games, which is also an event on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour.

The winners of the men’s singles and women’s singles will earn automatic qualification for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, with Japan’s world No. 1 players Shingo Kunieda and Yui Kamiji heading the entries for the two draws.

Kunieda is also bidding for his second successive Asian Para Games men’s singles and doubles gold medal.

Thailand’s Sakhorn Khanthasit, double gold winner at the Guangzhou 2010 Asian Para Games in the singles and doubles, will be looking to retain her titles, but will face tough competition from Kamiji who has been in electric form all year.

Saturday (18 October) sees five men’s singles matches, highlighted by Pakistan’s Altaf-Ur-Rahman competing in his first major international competition against Sri Lanka’s Gamini Dissanayake.

Kamiji has a bye through to the women’s singles quarter-finals and will play the winner of the first round match between South Korea’s Jung-Hye Yeo and Chinese Taipei’s Chia-Yi Lu.

Japan’s Mitsutero Moroishi and Shota Kawano are the top seeds for the quad singles, with all four seeded players having byes into the last eight. Moroishi will play the winner of the match between Chinese Taipei’s Chu-Yin Huang and Azman Hasan of Malaysia.

The Asian Para Games will see athletes from 41 countries compete in 23 sports.