The Asian Games men's singles champion, who rose to the highest ranking of his career at No 77 this week, after reaching the same spot in January, is seeded second in the qualifiers where he will take on American wildcard entrant Jonathan Schneider in the opening round.

The match is expected to be a stroll in the park for Danai as his opponent is not even ranked inside the top 1,000.

However, he will have a tough task against Chilean Paul Cardeville in the second round if he gets past Schneider.

 "My goal is to make it to the main draw and win the first round. But Cardeville won't be easy for me. He beat my friend Lu Yen-hsun in two sets last week,'' said Danai, who has been training intensively for the tournament. He said he had spent four hours on the court every day and practised with several good players such as former top 10 player Rainer Schuettler of Germany and Kristian Pless of Denmark.

"I hit out with two players every day and worked very hard on court. I hope to get some good results here,'' added Danai, who last week reached the group stage of the ATP event in Las Vegas.

The slow surface together with the heat in California should benefit Danai, who is known for his solid baseline game. "The ball is quite heavy on these kinds of courts. I can play on it but it also depends on how my opponent moves on the surface."

His compatriots Paradorn Srichaphan and Tamarine Tanasugarn have been automatically included in the main draw. Paradorn, who has been sidelined with a wrist injury, will launch into action for the first time in more than a month against Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia and Montenegro, the man who toppled him on grass in Nottingham last year.

Tamarine has been awarded a comfortable first round clash with Ukrainian qualifier Julia Vakulenko.