All England defeat for Ratchanok ends Thai hopes
Thai hearts hit rock bottom yesterday when defeat for local ace and world No 10 Ratchanok Inthanon ended the Kingdom's hopes at the All-England Badminton Championships in Birmingham.
Three-time world junior champion Ratchanok, the only Thai to survive a first-round catastrophe for the team, lost a hard-fought encounter to South Korean Sung Ji-hyun yesterday.
The Thai teen found world No 11 Sung, who last year captured the Chinese Taipei Open and the Korea Open titles, an impossible nut to crack. After winning the opener, Ratchanok was on the losing end of a finely poised second set before she finally succumbed 17-21 24-22 21-15 in a gruelling 66 minutes.
The defeat capped a losing run for the team that saw several Thai players fall victim to their traditional rivals. Among them were the mixed duo of Sudket Prapakamol and Saralee Thoungthongkam, who finished runners-up at the previous edition last year, and former Thailand Open champion Boonsak Ponsana.
The sixth seeds Sudket and Saralee, who were victors at last year’s India Open, lost 21-16 21-16 to formidable familiar faces Ko Sung-hyun and Eom Hye-won of South Korea, while local ace and world No 22 Boonsak went down in a close-fought tussle with lower-ranked Malaysian Daren Liew 21-19 23-21.
The Thai players next head for Basel to contest the Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold between March 13 and 18.
Chong Wei, Lin in to last four
Two-time defending champion and world No 1 Lee Chong Wei reached the quarter-finals on Thursday, beating Denmark’s Hans-Kristian Vittinghus 23-21 21-18.
Meanwhile, Lin Dan, the four-time champ, stayed on course to meet Chong Wei in a third All England final in four years when he eased past qualifier Chong Wei-feng 21-13 21-16.
Also joining them were seventh-seeded Kenichi Tago and No 8 Lee Hyun-il of South Korea for the first time since he went all the way to the final in 2006, plus first-timers Malaysian qualifier Liew Daren and Indonesian surprise Dionysius Hayom Rumbaka.
They helped to make up the first all-Asian men’s quarter-finals since 2005.
On the women’s side, defending champion Wang Shixian was even more ruthless in her rematch of last year’s final with Eriko Hirose of Japan, winning 12 minutes faster and by 21-10 21-19.
Top-seeded Wang Yihan stayed perfect against Liu Xin, beating her Chinese team-mate 21-13 21-12, fourth-seeded Saina Nehwal of India advanced, and 17-year-old Tai Tzu-ying of Taiwan eliminated eighth-seeded Juliane Schenk of Germany, 21-12 21-11.
Tai’s first All England quarter-final was just reward for a rising star on the circuit, who since June has beaten top-four players Wang Yihan, Wang Xin (twice) and Nehwal.
