Between American veteran Gao Jun and Japanese Ai Fukuhara, one has to go before the women's World Cup knockout stage, according to the draw on Thursday.

The three-day World Cup, which features 16 world top-ranked players and continental champions, will open the group competition on Friday.

The draw pitted Fukuhara and Gao into Group A, which also includes China's Olympic and world champion Zhang Yining and African champion Bacent Osman of Egypt.

With the top-ranked Zhang set to make it to the quarter-finals and the 375th-ranked Osman unlikely to advance, the winner of the Gao-Fukuhara clash will secure the other ticket to the knockout stage.

Gao is ranked 12th in the world with Fukuhara two notches down.

Zhang, winner in 2001, 2001, 2004 and 2005, will start her World Cup campaign against the doll-faced Japanese on Friday afternoon, who speaks impeccable Chinese and is hugely popular in China.

World No. 3 Guo Yan of China is bundled with No. 13 Lin Ling from Hong Kong, China, Viktoria Pavlovich of Belarus and Ligia Santos Silva of Brazil in Group B.

Lin's teammate Tie Yana, rated fourth in the world, leads Group B, which also includes No. 7 Li Jia Wei of Singapore, No. 22 Nicole Struse of Germany and No. 50 Wang Chen of the United States.

Chinese Li Xiaoxia, world No. 6, is bundled with No. 10 Kim Kyung Ah of South Korea, No. 21 and European champion Liu Jia of Austria and No. 127 Karen Li of New Zealand.

The 135,000 US dollars World Cup offers 44,000 dollars for the champion and 22,000 for the runner-up. The third placer will have 15,000.

Source: Xinhua