Bulgarian badminton player Petya Nedelcheva said in Beijing on Friday that she hoped to win a medal at the impending Beijing Olympic Games, a step forward from four years ago when she was defeated in the quarterfinals.

Despite in the same half with top players including Chinese Xie Xingfang, Xu Huaiwen, Lu Lan and Wong Mew Choo of Malaysia, Nedelcheva eyes better results than at the Athens Games where she was defeated by Chinese Zhou Mi.

"Every game is different and anything could happen," she said. She rested the hope on the 21 points scoring system, which was introduced to the Olympic Games for the first time.

"You will have to play with full power from the very beginning of a game (at the Games) and every mistake could take a point, while Chinese players used to do their best in the second half of a game," she added.

She had never played with Wong before, but lost to Lulan from China in the Denmark Cup last year. She would have to beat the two to enter semifinals.

Her best ranking was 8th in the world and now ranks 16th.

A total of 173 players in 50 teams will compete in the badminton tournament for the Beijing Olympic Games, up from 172 players in 32 teams four years ago.

The men's singles will have 41 players, women's singles 47, and the men's, women's and mixed doubles will have 16 pairs respectively.

(Xinhua News Agency August 1, 2008)