Day of mixed fortunes for Chinese shuttlers
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-08-16 07:59

Chinese shuttlers had mixed fortunes Sunday, losing their best hope for the men's singles gold Lin Dan in the first round of the Olympic badminton tournament and sending their top women to next round.

Lin Dan, top seed in the tournament, seemed to be not in good form as he made too many unforced errors, while his opponent, unseeded Ronald Susilo from Singapore, pulled off an amazing performance with his strong forehand strikes.

"I made too many errors today," said Lin Dan, blaming the lose on his impatience.

He said he was impatient when his attacks were saved by the tenacious rival.

"Susilo played better," Lin admitted.

Susilo, who claimed 2004 Japan Open title, said he was lucky tobeat Lin, who was "too eager to win."

Women's singles top seed Gong Ruina smashed Thailand's only hope by beating Salakjit Ponsana in the second round.

The first set was not easy for Gong, 2001 world champion. She almost exerted all her efforts to secure a 11-9 win over 36th-ranked Salakjit.

However, the resistance of Thailand's top shuttler declined in the second set, losing both her stamina and morale and handed a 11-3 victory to Gong.

"She is quite strong in the first set, however, the overuse of stamina made her unable to fight back in the second one," Gong said, adding that she was in better form than yesterday.

Her compatriots Zhang Ning and Zhou Mi, championship favorites together with Gong, met much less resistance in their second matches, defeating Briton Kelly Morgan 11-6, 11-8 and Kaori Mori of Japan 11-2 11-4 separately.

South Korea, however, had a bad day, losing their two women's singles players and a mixed doubles pair.

The door to the quarter-final was slammed shut to South Korea'swomen's singles 6th seed Jun Jae Youn, who lost her second rounderto Cheng Shao-Chieh of Chinese Taipei, 11-3, 6-11 and 4-11.

Jun Jae Youn, 2004 Asian champion, found no difficulty in crushing the Chinese Taipei rookie in the first set, but she looked completely lost in the second and third sets, going down under Cheng's powerful shots.

"I feel quite satisfied with the second and third sets, in which I play excellent attacks, and I don't know what's the problem for Jun," said the 18-year-old Cheng.

Seo Yoon Hee, who beat 8th-seed Pi Hongyan in the first round, was upset by Bulgarian dark horse Petya Nedeltcheva, 11-7 5-11, 8-11.

Kim Yong Hyun/Lee Hyo Jung, No.3 seeds in the mixed doubles, failed to reach quarter-final after 1osing to Eriksen/Schjoldager of Denmark, 15-6, 12-15, 13-15.