LookAtVietnam – World No 1 Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia swatted aside Vietnamese Nguyen Tien Minh to reach the quarter-finals of the world championships yesterday, August 13.

Nguyen Tien Minh.

Despite Minh’s triumph at the Thailand Open late last month and his rising performance recently, Lee seemed to have no difficulties crushing Minh in the first set in a quick 14 minutes.

Minh seemed to regain his confidence in the second set, and the players, were more evenly matched. Minh did not give any chance for Lee to shut him out by keeping their scores neck and neck at 6-6, 7-7 until 14-14. Then Lee returned to the leading position with strong and flexible smashes to Minh’s side.

Lee showed the people his power by winning five straight points to reach the decisive point of 20-15, before Minh grabbed one point to keep his hope alive.

Then Lee won the set 21-17.

In the next round, Lee will meet with the winner of the match between Indonesian Sony Dwi Kuncoro, the No 6 seed, and Chetan Anand of India who is ranked No 15.

Olympic clash repeated

Chinese Lin Dan and Peter Gade of Denmark set up a repeat of their Olympic clash when they stormed into the men’s singles quarter-final round.

Lin, aiming to become the first shuttler to bag three successive world titles, proved too strong for Dicky Palyama of the Netherlands as he raced to a 21-11, 21-11 victory in 31 minutes.

Third-seeded Gade beat 10th-seeded Chan Yan Kit of Hong Kong 21-11, 21-12 in another prequarterfinal encounter.

“The pressure will be on him because I think he won’t like to lose to an old guy,” said the 32-year-old Gade, who was beaten by Lin in the quarter-finals of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“I have beaten him at home a few years ago, so I think I can’t beat him here also. I am going to give everything I have got. I am going to fight for each point. I can play freely because he is the favourite.

“I am so far happy with my performance. This is what I wanted to do before the quarter-finals. Chan played some wonderful shots, but I kept pressure on him. It will be a different match tomorrow.”

Lin said he had not expected such an easy win against Palyama, who had upset 11th-seeded Chinese Bao Chun Lai in the opening round.

“I have met him before, but it was never as easy as today. I watched his game (against Bao) and knew what to expect,” said Lin, who won the World title in 2006 and 2007.

“But the match against Gade will be different as he played well in the Olympics also.”

World No 1 Zhou Mi of Hong Kong moved into the women’s singles quarter-finals with a 21-11, 21-18 win over Japanese Ai Goto.

Fifth-seeded Chinese Xie Xingfang overcame stiff resistance from Thailand’s Salakjit Ponsana to make it to the last eight with a 21-16, 14-21, 21-9 victory.

The other women’s singles quarter-finalist was seventh-seeded Chinese Lu Lan, who posted a 21-18, 21-14 victory over ninth-seeded Wang Chen of Hong Kong.

VietNamNet/VNS/AFP