Chinese badminton players cleared the initial hurdle of the
first round of competition in the Proton Malaysia Super Series 2007
with all qualifying so far.
In the mixed doubles, Chinese players Gao Ling and Zheng Bo beat
German pair Ingo Kindervater and Katrin Piotrowski and entered the
second round of competitions.
Gao and Zheng played a quite easy game in their encounter with
the German pair, overcoming them 21-10, 21-5.
Zhao Tingting and Zhang Jun also breezed past their Russian
rivals, finishing their encounter in 23 minutes on of 21-19,
21-13.
In the women's singles, Zhu Lin from China swiftly finished her
encounter with Anu Nieminen from Finland with 21-13, 21-13.
However, in the men's singles, Chinese player Chen Yu met a
strong opponent from the Netherlands and almost bid the Malaysia
Open farewell. Yet, he finally knocked out Dicky Palyama with
20-22, 21-14,21-20.
In the women's doubles, Chinese players Gao Ling and Huang Sui
lost their first set against Japanese Akao Aki and Matsuda Tomomi,
but managed to come back in the next two sets, overcoming their
Japanese rivals 21-6, 21-14.
In the men's doubles, Chinese Fu Haifeng and Cai Yun conquered
Danish Boe Mathias and Joachim Fischer Nielsen 21-15, 12-21,
21-10.
China's world top-ranked player Lin Dan will face his strong
Indonesian rival Hidayat Taufik later on Wednesday, seen as a clash
of titans in the Malaysia Open this year.
(Xinhua News Agency January 18, 2007)