All Thais crash out of Badminton Asia Championships
All Thai shuttlers crashed out of the US$200,000 Dong Feng Citroen Badminton Asia Championships 2016 in Wuhan, China, with the last two pairings succumbing to their comfortable straight-game defeats to much stronger rivals in the quarter-finals on Friday.
The women’s duo of Puttita Supajirakul/Sapsiree Taerattanachai found top seeds and world No.1 Misaki Matsutomo/Ayaka Takahashi too strong to go down tamely 12-21 15-21 in just 38 minutes. The Japanese have already captured three major titles this year comprising the India Open, All England Open and Victor Far East Malaysia Masters.
In the mixed doubles event, Bodin Issara/Savitree Amitrapai, who the previous day received a walkover from Chinese third seeds Liu Cheng/Bao Yixin, lost 14-21 18-21 to world No. 10 and German Open silver medallists Shin Baek Cheol/Chae Yoo Jung from Korea.
Earlier, Thailand’s gold-medal hopeful Ratchanok Intanon, defending champion and world No.1 who has landed three World Superseries in a row in incredible three weeks comprising the India Open, the Malaysia Open and the Singapore Open, suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Japanese Sayaka Sato in the second round of the tournament.
BWF, the world’s badminton-governing body, will announce its weekly world rankings updates every Thursday and Thursday, May 5 will be a vital day the global shuttlers look forward to as apart from an announcement of the weekly BWF world rankings, the players will also acknowledge if they stand a chance to make the cut for the singles and doubles competitions in the Rio Games in August.
