Defending champion Taufik Hidayat crashed out of the men’s badminton tournament in his first match yesterday, still suffering lingering effects of dengue fever which hospitalized him just weeks before the Games.
The Indonesian, who turned 27 on Sunday, described the straight sets defeat to Wong Choong Hann as a surprise, but paid credit to the Malaysian veteran playing in his third Olympics.
“I was feeling not good, my condition was not 100 percent, [but] he was a good player today Wong Choong Hann,” Hidayat said. “It’s a surprise losing the first time round,” he said.
The Indonesian was cut down in the lead up to the Games, spending six days in hospital, leaving him just one week before Beijing to hit the courts again.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Hsieh Yu-hsing defeated Tien Minh Nguyen of Vietnam) 2-1 (21-16, 15-21, 21-15) to make today’s round of 16.
Chinese No. 1 Lin Dan beat Hong Kong’s Ng Wei and now plays South Korean’s Park Sung-hwan.
Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei beat Singapore’s Ronald Susilo earlier yesterday in his first outing.
Lee now plays Lithuania’s Kestutis Navickas who downed Russia’s Stanislav Pukhov 2-0.
China’s third seed Bao Chunlai overcame Kevin Cordon from Guatemala 2-0 in his round of 32 match.
And China’s fourth seed Chen Jin downed New Zealand’s John Moody 2-0.
In other matches, Denmark’s Kenneth Jonassen went down 1-2 against South Korea’s Lee Hyu-nil while eighth seeded Dane Peter Gade, trounced Algeria’s Nabil Lasmari 2-0.
Indonesia’s sixth seed Sony Dwi Kuncoro overcame Thailand’s Boonsak Ponsana 2-0, in a repeat of the playoff for the bronze medal at the Athens Games.
In the women’s doubles Japan’s Miyuki Maeda and Satoko Suetsuna dumped out China’s reigning Olympic champions to storm into the semi-finals.
The Japanese duo fought a three-game thriller against world champions Yang Wei and Zhang Jiewen who had been favorites.
The Japanese dropped to their knees after the match, hugging and crying.
“I’m very happy, they are the Olympic champions so even when we had 20 points in the third game, we could not take anything for granted. It wasn’t until we got that final point that we could celebrate,” Suetsuna said.
China’s Wei Yili and Zhang Yawen beat Taiwanese pair Chien Yu-chin and Cheng Wen-hsing 2-0 (21-14, 21-18).
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