Boonsak faces Olympic struggle
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Thailand's No 1 Boonsak Ponsana stretched his run of early exits on Wednesday at the Swiss Open, as he failed to make it beyond the second round for the third time in three weeks.
The former Thailand Open champion has suffered with a nagging right ankle injury since last year. Since opting for surgery on the ankle, his comeback attempt has been far from impressive. After taking a second-round beating at the German Open a fortnight ago, he then fell at the first hurdle in last week’s All-England Championships.
In this week’s Swiss Open, the 16th-seeded Boonsak looked in better form as he thrashed German Alexander Roovers 21-13 21-8 in the first round. But a daunting second-round encounter saw him lose 14-21 21-17 21-13 to Taiwan’s Hsueh Hsuan Yi. Despite suffering three successive early exits, world No 22 Boonsak remains hopeful of amassing enough BWF ranking points by May 3 to secure a ticket to the London Olympics.
Meanwhile, three Thai mixed pairings made it to the second round of the US$125,000 Swiss Open. Third-seeds and last year’s India Open winners Sudket Prapakamol and Saralee Thoungthongkam beat Indonesia’s Hendra Setiawan/Vita Marissa in a hard-fought thriller 21-17 13-21 22-20 to next take on Danes Mads Pieler Kolding/Julie Houmann.
Also impressive were Songphon Anugritayawon/Kunchala Voravichitchaikul, who battled for an impressive come-from-behind 19-21 21-16 21-12 victory over China’s Qiu Zihan/Tang Jinhua. They are next up against Japan’s Kenichi Hayakawa and Misaki Matsutomo. The third Thai pairing of Maneepong Jongjit/Savitree Amitrapai thrashed Danes Rasmus Bonde/Maria Helsbol 21-15 21-15 and were due to play Japanese Shoji Sato/Shizuka Matsuo late last night. Also advancing were the women’s duo of Duanganong Aroonkesorn and Kunchala.
Teen titan and world No 10 Ratchanok Inthanon was the only Thai to survive a disastrous singles first round for the team, with a sparkling 21-15 21-19 win over Yip Pui Yin from Hong Kong, who she has beaten three times in three weeks. The eighth-seeded Thai was taking aim at China-born Yao Jie of the Netherlands.
