Well done to the kiwi pairing of Olly Leydon-Davis & Delius Tang - beating a singaporean pair! They are the sole surving NZers.
KLRC World Juniors: Second Day not a Good One for Seeded Players Many seeds have fallen on day 2 at the KLRC World Junior Championships. After a relatively quiet first day with only a few minor upsets, today certainly turned out to be different. By Lynne Scutt, Badzine Correspondent Live in Waitakere Photos: Lynne Scutt (Live) and Badmintonphoto (Archives) The first major upset of the day was girls’ singles top seed and one of the favourites to take the title, Xing Aiying of Singapore (pictured), who went down in 3 games to 15-year-old Korean, Choi Hye In. The top seed took the first game quite comfortably and looked to be in control but the determined tiny Korean battled her way back to win the next 2 games and win the match in one minute short of an hour. Choi Hye In was then unable to continue her form in the next round as she faced Indonesian Maria Febe Kusumastuti later in the day and lost 21-14, 21-19. There were many upsets during the day with a lot of seeds going out of the tournament, perhaps showing why there were so many complaints and queries about the seeding before the draw was done. In the boys’ singles, Scottish no.1and 5th seed Kieran Merrilees went down to Saurabh Verma from India in 3 games. Also the 10th and 16th seed lost. Verma caused a bit of a stir at the Asian Juniors when he ousted the top Korean player in the first round before losing in the second. In Auckland, however, he is already in the fourth round but with a tough match tomorrow against Gao Huan of China. Mix of Fortunes for Tee In addition to the exit of the top seed, the early rounds of the day in the girls’ singles saw the 5th and 9th seeds lose, then a few hours later in the next round 4th seeded Dane Anne Hald Jensen lost a close game to Hung Shih Han of Chinese Taipei. Singapore had another high seed go out with Fu Mingtian, the 6th seed, losing to Wang Shixian of China in 2 games. Also to go out were the 14th, 15th and 16th seeds. One of these, Tee Jing Yi of Malaysia, twisted her ankle in the middle of the second game and was unable to recover properly and struggled through to finally lose in 2 games to Miki Yuriko. The trend was much the same in the girls’ doubles. There were many exciting matches happening at the same time. The 8th seeds from Denmark had their chances but couldn’t quite finish off their match against Malaysians Tee Jing Yi (before her injury) and Woon Khe Wei and ended up losing 22-20 in the third. Singapore 3rd seeds Gu Juan and Zhang Beiwen lost a long hard-fought battle with Chinese Taipei pair 25-23 in the third game and also the Korean 6th seeds lost. New Zealand Crowd Still Has Something to Cheer About...for now The boys’ doubles got through the day with no seeds being ousted. However young New Zealand players Delius Tang and Oliver Leyland-Davis (pictured) caused a minor upset beating Singaporean pair of Terry Yeo Zhou Jiang and Thng Boon Seong 21-19 in the third and will be the only home side players still in the tournament tomorrow. Unfortunately, they will have formidable opponents in second seeds and 2006 bronze medallists Lim and Mak of Malaysia. The Danish woes continued in the mixed doubles with 4th seeds Mikkel Elbjorn Larsen and Anne Skelbaek losing to Thai opponents. The 9th, 11th, and 13th seeds, from Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand respectively, were also beaten. All in all, not a good day for the seeds. Tomorrow the action heats up with many top players up against each other. Players get the morning off and the matches will get underway around 2.30pm NZ time.
