Nguyen Tien Minh entered the Chinese Taipei Grand Prix Gold’s third round after beating Kazuteru Kozai 2-0 yesterday.

World No 9 Minh met no difficulty with the unseeded Japanese Kozai, who is 82nd in the world. Kozai was up with Minh in the first few minutes of the first set but couldn’t keep it up. Minh won 21-15.

The second set was even worse for Kozai 13-21 and ended his tournament hopes.

Meanwhile, Minh enters the third round to face Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk of Thailand. The Vietnamese top player should have some advantage after such an easy second-round match while the Thai expended a lot of energy to beat the host’s 9th seed Yu Hsing Hsieh.

In their game, Tanongsak won the first set 21-17, while Hsieh came back to level with a 21-17 win in the second set. Things seemed easier for Hsieh in the decisive set and he led most of the way but Tanongsak downed thousands of Chinese Taipei fans’ hopes when he overcame Hsieh in the last minutes to win 22-20.

Hsieh was among three of the tournament’s top 10 seeds ousted after the second round. The first was No 10 Arvind Bhat of India who lost 17-21, 18-21 to Chih Hao Chen of the host team.

The second was Chetan Anand, No 7, also from India, who was defeated 21-19, 13-21, 21-17 by South Korea’s Sa Rang Kim.

Around 192 badminton players compete in the tournament for US$170,000 bonuses in men’s and women’s singles, doubles and mixed doubles events.

The finals are scheduled for Sunday.

VietNamNet/VNS