The French Open will provide the stage to test the consistency of the top ranked Malaysians – the men's pair of Koo Kien Keat-Tan Boon Heong and singles shuttler Lee Chong Wei.

Kien Keat-Boon Heong, who took over the top spot in the world rankings last week, are the top seeds for the first time in a Super Series event and they have team-mates Choong Tan Fook-Lee Wan Wah in their half of the draw in the Paris tournament from Oct 30-Nov 4.

For an all-Malaysian semi-finals, Kien Keat-Boon Heong and Tan Fook-Wan Wah will have to get past Danish veterans Lars Paaske-Jonas Rasmussen and Indonesian world champions Markis Kido-Hendra Setiawan.

Kien Keat-Boon Heong open their campaign against English youngsters Robert Adcock-Robin Middleton and should meet Hendri Kurniawan Saputra-Hendra Wiyaya of Singapore in the second round.

The other half of the draw has second seeds Fu Haifeng-Cai Yun, Danes Jens Eriksen-Martin Lundgaard Hansen, South Koreans Lee Yong-dae-Jung Jae-sung and Indonesians Luluk Hadiyanto-Alven Yulianto.

Chong Wei will also face stiff tests of his resolve to live up to his status as the world number two and second seed in Paris.

He has a tough opener against Danish veteran Kenneth Jonassen and a win should give him a match against Simon Santoso of Indonesia.

Chong Wei rode high after beating Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat and Lin Dan of China to win the Japan Open title last month. But was brought down to earth the following week in the Taiwan Open, losing to Simon in the quarter-finals.

Simon has beaten all the top Malaysian players in recent meetings and Chong Wei will be out to avoid another defeat by the unseeded Indonesian. In the same quarter are Chen Yu of China and Malaysian Mohd Hafiz Hashim.

The other Malaysian singles players in the fray are Wong Choong Hann, Yeoh Kay Bin, Roslin Hashim and Sairul Amar Ayob. All of them will be hard pressed to make it past the second round.

Top Malaysian women's singles player Wong Mew Choo faces an uphill task to clear the first round against World Championships runner-up Wang Chen of Hong Kong.

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