VietNamNet Bridge – Nguyen Tien Minh took only 33 minutes to grab a Macau Grand Prix Gold’s berth in the third round, beating Chinese Lu Qicheng 21-16, 21-18 yesterday.

Nguyen Tien Minh.

Lu’s best result was his 10-21, 21-16, 21-19 win over world 27th seed Ng Wei of Hong Kong at the China Open late last month.

The first round match on Tuesday was even easier for Minh and he trounced Lei Meng Fai of Macau 21-2, 21-9 in 15 minutes.

Lei could not find a solution to counter Minh’s storm of attacks and quickly lost in the first set. Despite his great effort in the second set, Lei left the game early.

Yesterday saw an upset by Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia, who beat Singapore’s Lee Yen Hui Kendrick who was the tournament’s 11th seed.

The Indonesian - who has not earned an international ranking - had to work very hard, but successfully won 21-11, 23-21 in 34 minutes in the second round.

In other matches, all other top seeded players secured their victories without difficulties.

World and tournament No 1 seed, Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia defeated Chinese Taipei’s Liu Chin Lun 21-12, 21-5.

Indonesian’s former Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat crushed Chan Kwong Beng of Malaysia 21-8, 21-17.

Andrew Smith of England met few difficulties winning 21-15, 12-21, 21-19 over Chen Long of China.

In the next round, Minh - the first Vietnamese player to win a spot in August’s Olympic Games - will meet Bao Chun Lai of China today.

It will be a real challenge for Minh as Bao is the tournament’s second seed and the world’s third.

The Macau Grand Prix kicked off on Tuesday and will conclude this Sunday.

(Source: Viet Nam News)