Probably some of you may have known that last year's WC and Olympic
champion, Taufik Hidayat (seeded 8),
was brought down by the much improved Anup Sridhar (India) this afternoon
(R2) in three close
games 21-14, 24-26, 22-20 lasting 73 min. Looks like Taufik will have to
train harder to retain his Olympic crown in Beijing 2008!
India's bright young star, Saina Nehwal, seemed to have found her touch to
beat Germany's Juliane Schenk, (13), in convincing style, 21-16, 21-10.
But the rest of the Indian contingent must have disappeared by this stage.
Singapore did no better with Ronald Susilo (11) still carrying the
Singapore flag high by beating Richard Vaughan of Wales 21-17, 21-17 but Li
Li received a drubbing from Wang Chen (6) of Hong Kong, 21-13, 21-6.
Most already knew that our own Kendrick Lee was unfortunate to have met
arguably Korea's top player, Lee Hyun Ill in the first round and lost
narrowly 21-7, 9-21, 21-18. Hyun Il was ranked world no.1 during his prime
and is making a return to the scene after being suspended by the KBA for
indiscipline. He advanced to Round 3 by eliminating Japan's number one,
Shoji Sato (10) 21-19, 21-15 today. Also, our young prospect Xing Aiying
was also demolished by China's junior Lu Lan (7) 21- 9, 21-15 in R1
yesterday.
Our young pair of Vanessa Neo and Shinta Mulia Sari quite predictably went
down to probable champions Gao Ling and Huang Sui (2) 21-9, 21-17. But I
think our girls have done well to have stretched the Chinese pair in the
second game.
Still in contention today are our WD pair of Jiang/Li (7) and our XD pairs
of unseeded Hendra/Jiang and Hendri/Li (13). It will be tough on our girls
to be fighting in the WD and XD events on the same day. If we can win in
two events, it will be more than satisfactory..
Will miss you all this Sunday. Hope there is TV live coverage on the WC
for both the Semis and Finals.
Cheers!
Kok Yew
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