Thai pair go down without a fight at the Macau Open
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Thailand's last hope in the US$200,000 Macau Open Grand Prix Gold Badminton Champion-ships ended when Sudket Prapa-kamol and Saralee Thoungthong-kam suffered a disappointing defeat at the hands of top seeds Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir of Indonesia i
World No 4 Tontowi and Liliyana combined excellently, leaving the Thai duo in hopeless positions to respond to their powerful shots. Indonesia thrashed the Thai challengers 21-17 21-11 in 29 minutes.
It was the Indonesians’ first win over the Thai duo. Tontowi and Liliyana performed well this year to win three titles at the Singapore Open, the Malaysia Open Grand Prix Gold and India Open Superseries.
In today’s mixed doubles final, Tontowi and Liliyana take on second seeds Chen Hung Ling and Cheng Wen Hsing of Taiwan, who came from behind to beat Indonesians Muhammad Rijal and Debby Susanto 18-21 21-14 21-14 in the other semi-finals yesterday.
In the quarter-finals earlier, Sudket and Saralee struggled to beat Maneepong Jongjit and Savitree Amitapai 21-16 8-21 21-13 in an all-Thai battle.
The previous day, Thai seventh seeds and world No 15 Duanganong Aroonkesorn and Kunchala Voravichitchaikul went down to Japanese second seeds and world No 5 Miyuki Maeda and Satoko Suetsuna 21-18 21-11 in 39 minutes in the women’s doubles quarter-finals.
The win stretched the Japanese’s win-loss record against the Thai pairing to 6-1. Duanganong and Kunchala beat the Japanese challengers only once – six years ago in the 2005 World Grand Prix Thailand Open.
