The Hindu : Sport / Badminton : Tjiptawan in semifinals

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 10, 2004

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Sport - Badminton

Tjiptawan in semifinals

TOKYO, APRIL 9. Mia Audina Tjiptawan of the Netherlands defeated Japan's Kaori Mori on Friday in the women's singles quarterfinals of the Yonex Open badminton tournament.

Tjiptawan, the tournament's fourth-seeded player, cruised into the semifinals with a convincing 11-7, 11-6 win over Mori at Yoyogi Gymnasium.

In other quarterfinals matches, China's Zhou Mi defeated South Korea's Jae Youn-jun 11-3, 11-6 while China's Gong Ruina downed Hong Kong's Chen Wang 11-7, 11-8.

China's Zhang Ning advanced to the semifinals with an 11-6, 11-2 victory over Germany's Nicole Grether.

In men's singles, China's Lin Dan defeated Peter Gade of Denmark 7-15, 15-9, 15-9 while compatriot Chunlai Bao downed Malaysia's Roslin Hashim 15-5, 15-9.

In the other quarterfinal match, Singapore's Ronald Susilo defeated South Korea's Seung Mo-shon 16-6, 6-15, 15-0.

South Korea's Tae Sang-park outlasted China's Chen Hong 15-11, 10-15, 15-10.

Martin bows out

Defending world champion Camilla Martin crashed out of the tournament on Thursday after losing in straight games to Germany's Nicole Grether. Martin, 30, playing in her first match since an ankle injury forced her out of the All England Championships last month, struggled to find her best form and tumbled to a 11-2, 13-11 defeat.

The Danish favourite, who is to retire after this summer's Athens Olympics, put a brave face on her 33-minute defeat, saying her expectations had been low in her comeback tournament. ``I didn't expect anything. I've been injured for three weeks and it was my first match, so it is OK,'' Martin said.

Grether could not hide her delight at scoring one of the biggest wins of her career. ``It's a big success for me, of course, but I think she was injured, so she was not fit at the moment, so it was much easier for me to beat her. I got a chance and I took it.''

``It was the first time that I beat her. I think I played against her two or three, four times, But I never had a chance. Today was the first time and I'm really happy, of course, because I took the chance.''

Reigning All England champion Gong Ruina of China, the top seed, beat the 1998 Asian Games gold medallist Kanako Yonekura 11-7, 11-7. Yonekura led 6-2 in the first game and 4-2 in the second, but Gong was quick to attack Yonekura and never let her come close to taking a game.

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