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Thursday June 26, 2008

Hafiz the last man standing in Thailand Open

PETALING JAYA: Junior shuttlers Chong Wei Feng and Mohd Arif Abdul Latif, who won gold and silver respectively in the recent Sukma (Malaysia Games) in Terengganu, failed to advance to the third round of the Thailand Open badminton championships in Bangkok last night.

Wei Feng lost to fifth seed Ng Wei of Hong Kong 17-21, 15-21 while Arif failed to get the better of Indonesia's Tommy Sugiarto, toiling for 55 minutes before going down 13-21, 22-20, 14-21.

It was left to former All-England champion Mohd Hafiz Hashim to keep the Malaysian singles challenge alive.

Hafiz, who was an early round casualty in the Indonesian Open last week, beat Taiwanese Chu Han-chou 21-12, 21-13 to secure a place in the third round.

Only four out of the 12 Malaysian men's singles players survived the first round action.

Sixth seeded KLRC Bhd shuttler Lee Tsuen Seng had a disappointing outing and was beaten 15-21, 15-21 by unheralded Macau shuttler Yu Hu while Kuan Beng Hong also met a similar fate.

The former Thomas Cupper fell 17-21, 13-21 in 26 minutes to Denmark's Joachim Persson and joining him as first round casualty was Tan Chun Seang, who bowed out 18-21, 21-11, 15-21 to Kendrick Lee of Singapore.

It was also an early end to Malaysia's challenge in the women's singles competition when all three representatives crashed out in the first round.

Julia Wong went down fighting to top seed and world number one Xie Xingfang of China 17-21, 21-19, 19-21 while third seed Wang Chen of Hong Kong came from behind to beat Anita Raj Kaur 16-21, 21-13, 21-18.

Top junior Lydia Cheah only managed to put some resistance in the early stages before going down 17-21, 9-21 to Ai Goto of Japan.

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