Top seed Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia easily beat compatriot Wong Choong Hann in the inaugural badminton Super Series Masters Finals yesterday.
Lee hardly broke sweat, needing only 23 minutes to dispose of the aging Wong 21-14, 21-13.
The Olympic silver medalist was due to take on a tougher opponent, Denmark’s Peter Gade, in another Group A match late yesterday.
Gade beat Hong Kong’s Chan Yan Kit 21-15, 21-17.
The season-ending Super Series Masters Finals began yesterday in Kota Kinabalu in the eastern state of Sabah. It offers a total purse of US$500,000.
Group B was where the action was, with a thriller between Indonesians Sony Dwi Kuncoro and Taufik Hidayat, which eventually saw Kuncoro clinch victory.
Hidayat, returning to the game only a week after suffering a wrist injury, delighted the crowd with a 25-23 win in the first game, but Kuncoro had it easy in the second, winning 21-14. Kuncoro won the deciding game 21-11.
Meanwhile No. 3 seed Joachim Persson of Denmark beat eighth seed Andrew Smith of England 21-14, 14-21, 21-12.
In the men’s doubles Jung Jae-sung and Lee Yong-dae of South Korea beat England’s Chris Adcock and Robert Blair in three sets while Koo Kien Kiat and Tan Boon Heong of Malaysia earned a straight sets victory against Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen of Denmark.
In the women’s singles, third-seeded Wang Chen of Hong Kong caused a stir when she beat compatriot and top seed Zhou Mi 21-12, 21-15 in a Group A match.
Xu Huaiwen of Germany beat Yu Hirayama of Japan.
In the women’s doubles Indonesians Lilyana Natsir and Vita Marissa beat Thailand’s Duang Anong and Kunchala Voravichitchaikul 21-16, 21-18.
Red Bull team chief Christian Horner has welcomed Ferrari’s U-turn to support a Formula One engine freeze from 2022. The move gives Red Bull a chance to continue using Honda power after the Japanese supplier exits next year. Speaking ahead of yesterday’s final practice for today’s Bahrain Grand Prix, Horner said that Ferrari’s decision was encouraging for F1 and everyone involved in the business end of the sport. “It’s positive news,” he said. “I think all the manufacturers, all the CEOs of the automotive industry, they all recognize the investment and cost of these engines, particularly with the new technology coming for 2026,
Argentina’s Pablo Matera yesterday said that he was “deeply ashamed” as he was stripped of the captaincy and suspended along with two other players over messages he wrote on Twitter in 2011 to 2013. Just weeks after leading the Pumas to their first win over the All Blacks, the Argentina Rugby Union “revoked” Matera’s captaincy and suspended him, along with lock Guido Petti and hooker Santiago Socino. “The Argentina Rugby Union forcefully rejects the discriminatory and xenophobic comments published by members of the Pumas squad on social media,” a statement read. In the tweets, since deleted, Matera spoke of “running over blacks” with
Taiwan Steel on Sunday celebrated with the Taiwan Football Premier League trophy, despite a 3-1 loss in their final match of the season, while Taipower claimed second place and Tatung’s Ange Samuel scored on a breakaway to claim the Golden Boot with 20 goals. Ahead of all four of Sunday’s matches players, coaches and fans observed a minute’s silence prior to kickoff in honor of Argentine great Diego Maradona, who died aged 60 on Wednesday last week, following a directive received from FIFA. Already assured the title, Taiwan Steel manager Lo Chi-chong fielded a second-string team against defending champions Tatung in Taoyuan. Lo
Argentine prosecutors on Friday were investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Diego Maradona and whether it could have involved medical negligence, judicial sources said. “There are already irregularities,” a close family member told reporters. Maradona’s lawyer, Matias Morla, had earlier called for an investigation into claims that ambulances took more than half an hour to reach the soccer star’s house in response to an emergency call on the day of his death. A preliminary autopsy report established that Maradona died in his sleep at noon on Wednesday of “acute lung edema and chronic heart failure.” The prosecutors’ office in Buenos Aires has opened
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