Taiwan’s Fang Chieh-min and Lee Sheng-mu virtually guaranteed themselves a spot in the quarter-finals of the badminton men’s doubles yesterday after scoring a relatively comfortable Group A win over an Australian duo.
Fang and Lee, ranked ninth in the world, defeated world No. 38 duo Ross Smith and Glenn Warfe 21-14, 21-13 in 27 minutes, to secure a 2-0 record in group matches.
The Taiwanese pair coasted through the first set, benefiting from some inopportune errors by the Australians. Smith and Warfe kept the second game even over the first 12 points with good serves and powerful smashes, but the Taiwanese duo began pulling away after that.
If the world No. 2 pairing Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng of China beat the German team of Johannes Schoettler and Ingo Kindervater in their Group A clash later yesterday, the Taiwanese and Chinese duos would be guaranteed spots in the quarter-finals.
Fang and Lee would then seek to upset Cai and Fu in the final Group A match tomorrow to finish top of the group and get a more favorable draw.
The Olympics badminton events have divided players into groups to whittle fields down to smaller numbers before entering elimination rounds.
In the mixed doubles, Taiwan’s Chen Hung-ling and Cheng Wen-hsing lost their Group D match to Sudket Prapakamol and Saralee Thoungthongkam of Thailand 21-15, 21-16.
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