WTT Contender Antalya 2023, 10/16-22

When initial entry list is opened, there are one top CNT player and some lower ranked CNT players, but they are all canceled later. I didn't see any description about this on any media.

Does someone know the reason for this action? 

Again, in a draw of 32 they only seed 8 players, the rest is random. Nothing "strange" about it. 

And national or club affiliations are not taken into account, obviously.

Edit: Boll's late withdrawal may have led to the qualifier vs qualifier situation. It seems Rassenfosse ended up taking Boll's spot, and Gnanasekaran got in as a lucky loser.

Hayata really looked in top form against the Thai, especially in that second game. Couldn't get a ball past her. She made some incredible shots.

Adina Diaconu 3-1 Hana Goda

[Edit] Unfortunately, Bernie lost to an on fire Li Yu-Jhun.

'Strange' might have been the wrong word and I do realize that with seedings as they are this sort of thing is possible. Still, I would argue that it would have made much more sense to manipulate the rules of the draw so that Franz and Darko could have had a qualifier each rather than having flown to Turkey just to have a best of five with their climate in the first round. 

Miwa still has problems with players who generate quality spin, she is getting better at dealing with it, but there is room for improvement. 

Watching game 5 of the Nagasaki-Hayata match in Muscat, I think the match trigger a stress response in Hayata that led to a surge in form that seems to not have abated.  It will be interesting to see how long it lasts.  But something in that game is what I would attribute the current sustained excellence to.  Watching it in real time, I was like "where has this level of play been?  It took the fear of losing to Nagasaki to bring it out?"