Chinese badminton player Lin Dan, gold medalist at the Beijing Olympics, is going to meet Athens Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat at the round of 16, according to the draw result on Monday.

At the draw ceremony at the Main Press Center in the Olympic Park, names of the shuttlers were put on the rackets, while the numbers of groups were on symbolic shuttlecocks. The 16 seeds in each singles event and four seeds in the doubles competitions were all determined by the Badminton World Federation rankings issued on May 3, 2012.

Topping the world ranking list currently, Lin was seeded second after Lee Chong Wei from Malaysia, and placed in Group P of men's singles. In the same group with him was 25-year-old Scott Evans from Ireland, who went to the Beijing Olympics four years ago but lost in the first round.

Indonisian prodigy Taufik Hidayat, No. 11 seed in the world, was in Group O, which means if both playing well, he will face his arch-rival Lin Dan in the next round. Historical result showed that the pair has met 15 times, but Lin maintained an advantage of 12 victories. He has never lost to Taufik since 2007.

Another Chinese player Chen Jin will be playing with Polish Przemyslaw Wacha, while Chen Long will have a tough test in front of Boonsak Ponsana from Thailand. Chen Long lost twice to Ponsana, only won once in 2010. The winner between them is likely to meet Lee Chong Wei from Malaysia in the semi-final.

Having said that London will be his last attempt to win honours at the Olympics, Lee, 30, is suffering injury and trained currently in Bath. When asked about his situation, Tun Ahmad Sarji, Chef de mission of the Malaysian team only replied "it is a secret".

Across the five medal events - men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles and mixed doubles - there are a total of 172 players in the draw. The draw on Monday allocated players into 16 round-robin groups of two or three for the men's and women's singles events, and four groups of four for the men's, women's and mixed doubles.

In women's singles, the top three seeds, Chinese Wang Yihan, Wang Xin and Li Xuerui were in groups A, P and L respectively. Wang Xin and Li could possibly meet in the semi-final, but the overall prospect for the Chinese girls is promising.

The doubles events each sees two Chinese pairs as No. 1 and No.2 seeds, falling into groups A and D eventually.

Bad news came for the Chinese pair to be competing in mixed doubles, as Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei were slotted in a group with Russian players Alexandr Nikolaenko/Valeri Sorokina, German Michael Fuchs/Birgit Michels and British Chris Adcock/Imogen Bankier. Adcock and Bankier won their 2011 World Championships silver at Wembley Arena, the Olympic venue this year. They beat Zhang and Zhao on several occasions.