KOREA OPEN Day 2 – Seeded Men Stand Strong

KOREA OPEN Day 2 – Seeded Men Stand Strong

Korea’s second best men’s entries gave their best effort at Olympic Park in the first round of the 2009 Yonex Korea Open Super Series but Malaysian and Danish veterans still got the better of them. Men’s singles top seed Lee Chong Wei bent but did not break as he sidelined Hong Ji Hoon in three games. Denmark’s Lars Paaske / Jonas Rasmussen (pictured) continued to have their way with Korea’s pairs, this time schooling Cho/Yoo in a 34-minute romp. By Don Hearn, Badzine Correspondent live in Seoul. Photos: Badmintonphoto (live) All of the men’s singles shuttlers were in action in the first round. Surprisingly, given Lee Chong Wei’s recent run of good form, one of the longest matches of the day was the first, where Hong Ji Hoon of Korea overcame a first-game embarrassment to put in a respectable showing against the top seed. Lee ended up winning 21-11, 17-21, 21-15, after 54 minutes. Lee’s success was to be mimicked by the rest of the seeded players but none of the other seeds gave up a game. India’s Anup Sridhar looked very strong against Ng Wei of Hong Kong. The massive underdog earned four match points after executing an 8-point run in the deciding game but Ng Wei kept his nerve and clawed back to save all four match points and to finally take it 21-23, 21-17, 24-22. Japan’s Koichi Saeki had similar success in snatching victory from the jaws of defeat as he bounced back from 16-19 down in the second to take his match against Malaysia’s Sairul Amar Ayob 22-24, 22-20, 21-14. Denmark’s Joachim Persson (pictured) never let up on the pressure in his match against Malaysia’s Mohd Hafiz Hashim. Constantly on the defensive, Hafiz - whose 2007 semi-final finish here was his last podium appearance on record - displayed some remarkable backhands but he had difficulty gaining control over the rallies and over his own errors and Persson won handily 21-13, 21-12. Apart from Lee Chong Wei, Malaysia’s only remaining threat is down in the bottom quarter along with Indonesia’s only two entries, both teams having been ravaged by withdrawals and losses. Chong Wei Feng beat local qualifier Kim Sa Rang and will face Simon Santoso in the second round while Mohd Arif Abdul Latif is to face Andre Tedjono Kurniawan, who won narrowly over Japan’s Tago Kenichi. The men’s doubles was the only discipline to see a seed depart in the first round. Denmark’s Bonde/Larsen dumped 7th-seeded Japanese pair Ikeda/Sakamoto and go on to face world #19 pair Ahsan/Septano of Indonesia. They will join two other pairs in the second round as fourth-seeded Boe/Mogensen had a bye and third seeds Lars Paaske / Jonas Rasmussen made quick work of Korean #2 Cho Gun Woo /Yoo Yeon Seong. “They are a good pair and we knew we had to play well. We varied the pace and tried to use the whole court, which was easy to do in this big hall as there is not much breeze,” Rasmussen said afterward. The Dane admitted that they knew how to play the Koreans but denied that this left them as the pair to beat. “Lee/Jung and Kido/Setiawan are still the top pairs right now and if we want to win tournaments they way they’ve been doing, we need to focus on our consistency. To win a tournament like this, you have to be able to beat top 10 and top 5 pairs all the way to the final and that’s difficult because you have to play pairs with such different styles. If you want to be #1, you have to beat all the pairs all the time and this is what we hope to start doing.” Korea’s #3 pair also went down to a pair of crafty veterans as Malaysia’s Lee Wan Wah / Choong Tan Fook (photo, left) withstood a late challenge Ko/Kwun, who made an 8-point run to pull to within one at 18-19 before the Malaysians pulled away to cap off their 21-17, 21-19 victory. Chan Chong Ming and Chew Choon Eng struggled in their first game against 18-year-olds Kim Ki Eung / Kim Ki Jung (no relation) but ran away with the second in their 23-21, 21-8 victory. They must now face the experimental pairing of Han Sang Hoon / Shin Baek Cheol. Han was paired with Hwang Ji Man last week in Malaysia but is bound to be tough to beat when joining forces with 2007 World Junior Champion Shin. Elsewhere, last year’s quarter-finalists, Fang/Lee of Chinese Taipei, pulled off a solid 21-17, 21-17 win over England’s Adcock/Blair to set up a date with Olympic champions Kido/Setiawan. For complete 1st round results from the 2009 Yonex Korea Open Super Series, please CLICK HERE