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Chinese march on at All England Championships
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-01-19 10:54
BIRMINGHAM, England, Jan 18 (Reuters) - China's big guns, headed by top seed
Lin Dan, marched into the third round of the men's singles at the All England
Championships on Wednesday.
China's Chen Hong
returns a shot to Yousuke Nakanishi of Japan in their men's singles match
during the first round of the All England badminton championships in
Birmingham, England January 18, 2006.
[Reuters] | Lin was joined by holder Chen Hong and
world junior champion Chen Jin.
Denmark's Peter Gade, winner in 1999, looked to be Europe's best hope in the
face of the customary onslaught from China who won four of the five events here
last year.
Gade had little trouble in an arena he knows well, particularly when he
defeated Malaysia's Pei Wee Chung 15-1 15-4 in the second round.
Lin, men's singles champion two years ago, dropped a game in each of his
first and second-round matches, both played on a marathon opening day stretching
over 14 hours and featuring 96 contests.
But he recovered well, especially in his second-round encounter with stubborn
Dane Kasper Oedum, finally coming out on top 5-15 15-6 15-4.
New kid on the block Chen Jin produced a mature second-round performance to
brush aside Denmark's Joachim Fischer Nielsen 15-5 15-8. He had earlier disposed
of 2003 champion Hafiz Hashim of Malaysia.
Chen Hong, also All England champion in 2002, had too much guile and power
for Russian Stanislav Pukhov, scoring an easy 15-7 15-4 second-round success.
The only cloud on the Chinese horizon was the fate of second seed Bao Chunlai
who had to pull out with an ankle injury in the second game of his second-round
match with Joachim Persson. The Dane was leading 17-15 10-5.
Another lengthy day is in prospect on Thursday with players in all five
events bidding for quarter-final places.
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