Home shuttlers advance to three finals at Thailand Open
Local hopefuls Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk and Busanan Ongbamrungpan cruised their ways to the finals of the US$120,000 2016 SCG Thailand Open Grand Prix Gold Badminton Championships at the Nimibutr Gymnasium on Saturday.
Tanongsak will next go up against second-seeded Indonesian Sony Dwi Kuncoro in the men’s showdown, while Busanan challenges Japanese Aya Ohori in the women’s final clash.
The prestigious tournament, which started on October 4, has reached the semi-finals on Saturday, which saw Thai players in action in men’s and women’s singles, women’s and mixed doubles. The Thai players all crash out in the men’s doubles quarter-finals earlier.
In the men’s singles event, fifth-seeded and world No.26 Tanongsak, who has already made it to three semi-finals earlier this year consisting of the Thailand Masters, the China Masters and Chinese Taipei Open, powered past eighth-seed Kenta Nishimoto from Japan 21-19 21-16 in the Saturday’s semi-finals to next challenge Singapore Open champion and world No.32 Sony Dwi Kuncoro, who struggled to beat Lee Cheuk Yiu from Hong Kong 19-21 21-16 21-17 in the other semi-final encounter. Tanongsak and Kuncoro have met six times and Kuncoro fared better to win four matches and suffer only two losses to Tanongsak.
Thailand had a mixed fortune in the women’s singles semi-finals on Saturday when fourth-seeded Nitchaon Jindapol went down in gruelling three games 12-21 21-12 13-21 to Japanese Aya Ohori, while another Thai, Busanan Ongbamrungpan, who captured this year’s Indonesian Masters title, pulled off a convincing 22-20 21-13 win over Malaysian Goh Jin Wei.
In the women’s doubles competition, Thailand’s Puttita Supajirakul/Sapsiree Taerattanachai lived up to their top billing as the top seeds outclassed Japanese Miyuki Kato/Miki Kashihara 21-14 21-13 in the semi-finals to next take on Japanese fifth-seeds Wakana Nagahara/Mayu Matsumoto who stunned second-seeds Rawinda Prajongjai/Jongkolphan Kitttharak 21-19 21-17.
Thailand’s second seeds Dechapol Puavaranukroh/Sapsiree Taerattanachai were beaten in the semi-finals by third seeds Tan Kian Meng/Lao Pei Jing from Malaysia 24-22 17-21 14-21 in the mixed doubles, while team-mates Supak Jomkoh/Puttita Supajirakul also crashed out after going down 21-18 13-21 15-21 to Hong Kong’s Tang Chun Man/Tse Ying Suet.
In the Sunday’s finals, the women’s doubles will be first contested at 1pm local time, followed by women’s singles, men’s doubles, mixed doubles and men’s singles respectively.
