YONEX-SUNRISE BWF World Championships '09 - Jorgensen stuns Park, Mew Choo runs out of steam

But the Korean wasn’t the only favourite to fall, so did Malaysia’s Wong Mew Choo.

“This doesn’t beat when I won against Peter Gade, but it comes next!”. Jan Jorgensen was obviously thrilled after he beat eighth seed Park Sung Hwan from Korea, in the second round of the YONEX-SUNRISE BWF World Championships.

And he did it in style, with a very clever way of playing, especially towards the end, where he pushed Park to make mistakes while the latter was in the lead in the third game. “I don’t know what happened towards the end. I was still feeling a lot of energy, but I knew that I had to keep control of the net. I was able to do so and he started committing mistakes,” said Jorgensen after his 21/16 – 17/21 – 21/15 win.

“It feels great to beat him as it shows I’m a bit ahead of schedule. I wanted to beat a player in the top eight this year and it comes early. I had seen his first match and I could see he wasn’t playing so well, even if Klausen played a wonderful match, but with these top players, you just know that they won’t play twice in a row like that, so I was expecting a tough tie.

“I will now take one match at the time and try my best against Boonsak Ponsana who will be tough to beat – he had beaten me last year in Thailand. And I can’t dream of a quarter final against Taufik yet,” said the Dane, who is only 21 and is on the top of the list together with Joachim Persson to succeed fellow Dane Peter Gade.

Gade certainly didn’t expect to spend so little time on centre court for a tricky second round against Sho Sasaki. The Japanese had the reputation of never letting go, always fighting, but yesterday, Gade didn’t leave any open window for his opponent to jump in.

Very much in control of the rallies, both when he had the wind on his back and against him, the Dane saw most of what he was trying, work and came out with a 21/11 – 21/12 win.

“Things went well and I think I applied the right tactic. I had expected a tougher match as he is a strong opponent but I’m glad it went this way. I’ve had a really good preparation towards this tournament and I feel like the little things that I was missing in Singapore and Indonesia are here now. It will be a tough road along the way as I am in the toughest part of the draw but I will give everything I have,” said Gade.

Lee Chong Wei and Taufik Hidayat had also rather smooth days. The Malaysian played Ola Fagbemi of Nigeria who finally made it just in time for his match after a late departure from Lagos and an added delay in transit in Dubai.

Chong Wei was obviously enjoying his match, smiling from time to time at Fagbemi’s smashes – always retrieving them but sometimes with more difficulties than he might have expected. Yet, taking the job seriously, Lee was out of the court with a 21/11 – 21/14 win.

Chong Wei’s next is opponent the player he lost to the last time they played in Singapore – Vietnam’s Nguyen Tien Minh.

Taufik faced a shuttler of French and Chinese mix – Matthieu Lo Ying Ping, well supported by fans who had travelled all the way from Paris. And the 23 year old French did not disappoint his fans – they had their shares of dives, round the head smashes, and fought his heart out before he bowed 17/21 – 15/21.

“I am happy that I am in this part of the draw, but this is the game. I will try to go all the way if I can as I feel good here. I’ve won the last time I played in this stadium and I feel like the fans are very supportive,” said Taufik, who will take on Taipei’s Yu Hsing Hsieh next.

Lin Dan later dismissed Tailand’s Tanongsak in straight games in the last match of the day while Chen Jin had a scare earlier when he was led one game down from India’s P. Kashyap. But the latter, in spite of his crowd’s support, was not able to keep up with the speed of the second seeded Chinese and was crushed in the next two games.

Wong Mew Choo and Ai Goto provided the fans at the Gachibowli stadium with a fierce battle and a suspenseful ending of the match. The 14^th seeded Malaysian took the first game 21/18 before letting go 12/21 in the second, hoping to keep some energy for the last, but the Japanese worked her way around it and made her opponent run and run and.. run.

Leading 17/13, Ai then lost focus which saw Wong score five points in a row to lead 18/17. “At that point, I didn’t want to lose without a fight, but I gave in too much energy to try to catch back and I felt very tired in the end,” said Wong.

Goto took her chances and scored the last two points by smashing on Wong’s body after having played long clears through out the whole match. “I wasn’t prepared for these shots and I couldn’t retrieve them,” said the disappointed Malaysian, who was finally edged out 21/23 in the third game.

China’s Xie Xingfang was not far from losing the first game to Bulgaria’s Linda Zecchiri who was in the lead most of the first game, but the tall former world champion finally took it before ending it in the second game on a walkover at 18/10, depriving Bulgaria from a historical third round for two shuttlers in the same draw. Wang Lin, Wang Yihan and Lu Lan also secured their spot in the third round as did India Open winner Pi Hongyan and Saina Nehwal who clearly enjoyed the crowd’s support.

Denmark’s Lars Paaske and Jonas Rasmussen, third seeds in the men’s doubles, were not lucky with the draw, playing the newly formed pair of Han Sang Hoon-Shin Baek Choel. The Europeans didn’t go down without a fight and lost in a tight three games encounter. China’s Guo and Xu also created an upset when they beat 7^th seeds Indonesians Bona Septano and Muhammad Ahsan.

Posted by Lucas Liau on 9:20 AM. Filed under News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0