Candra, Halim lose at Korea Open

Candra, Halim lose at Korea Open

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesian badminton doubles pair Candra Wijaya and Halim
Haryanto suffered further setbacks in their hunt for an Olympics
berth after stumbling in the opening round of the Korea Open in
Choongju City, South Korea, on Wednesday.

Candra and Halim lost to home hopefuls Lee Dong-soo and Yoo
Yong-sung 15-10, 15-11 in 38 minutes, the tournament's website
said.

It was the second poor performance on the trot by the pair who
had entered this year's season with a victory at the Copenhagen
Masters.

Candra and Halim also crashed out in the first round at the
All England tournament, losing to Nathan Robertson and Anthony
Clark of England.

The defeats have dampened the pair's hopes for an Olympic
qualification for the Athens Games in August.

Indonesia has three other men's doubles pairs who have made
the next round.

Flandi Limpele and Eng Hian dispatched Huang Shih-Chung and
Chien Yu-Hsun of Chinese Taipei 15-9, 15-5 in nearly 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, Luluk Hadiyanto and Alven Yulianto brushed aside Kevin
Han and Howard Bach of the United States 15-7, 15-13 in about the
same amount of time.

Sigit Budiarto and Tri Kusharyanto took a little longer,
needing about 45 minutes in their 15-9, 15-10 win over Danes
Mathias Boe and Michael Lamp.

In the women's doubles, Eny Erlangga and Lilyana Natsir
suffered a shock defeat to Germans Nicole Grether and Juliane
Schenk, losing out 15-11, 15-10.

Jo Novita and Lita Nurlita came back from a set down to
overcome Japanese Tomomi Matsuda and Aki Akao 13-15, 15-6, 15-9.

Indonesian players also got mixed results in the mixed doubles
with Nova Widianto/Vita Marissa advancing and Anggun Nugroho/Eny
Widowati dropping out.

Nova/Vita beat Kristof Hopp/Katrin Piotrowski of Germany 15-
12, 15-7 while Anggun/Eny appeared to be unable to hold steady
against favorites Cheng Rui/Zhang Yawen in a 15-10, 8-15, 5-15
loss.

Meanwhile, Taufik Hidayat, the only Indonesian player in the
men's singles, abandoned his bid early after he lost to Sergio
Llopis of Spain on Monday.

Both players took a set each before Taufik withdrew because of
injury trailing 8-0 in the third.