Seededs cruise to third round of ABC

JAKARTA (Agencies): Seededs cruised to the third round of the US$136,000 JVC Asian Badminton Championships (ABC) in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.

Men's singles top seeded Fung Permadi, an Indonesian playing for Chinese Taipei, had an easy win over Ho Van Loi of Vietnam 15-6, 15-5 in the second round while second seeded Chen Gang of China beat Rasel Kabir of Bangladesh 15-5, 15-6.

Third seeded Ong Ewe Hock of Malaysia beat Tam Lok Tin of Hong Kong 15- 5, 15-5 and fourth seeded Chen Hong of China was barely in a sweat to win over C. Kumarapperuma of Sri Lanka 15-1, 15-4.

Eighth seeded Marlev Mainaky of Indonesia had a walkover win thanks to Toh Wei Kai of Singapore. Compatriot Johan Hadikusuma, ninth seeded, had to work hard to eliminate Chang Jeng Shyong of Chinese Taipei 12-15, 15-3, 15-4. Indra Wijaya defeated Abhinn Shyam of India 15-12, 15-8.

In the women's singles, top seeded Dai Yun of China did not sweat as Sharmin Ahmed of Bangladesh was beaten. Second seeded Ye Zhaoying of China gave a free lesson to Elena Khamidulina of Uzbekistan to win 11-2, 11-0.

Indonesian Meiluawati, unseeded in the championships, also reached the third round by beating Ng Ching of Hong Kong 11-9, 11-2.

Juniors Dwi Retnowati and Ninik Masrikah, who were just admitted to the Indonesian Badminton Center early this year, followed their senior steps. Dwi beat Manjusha Kanwar of India 115, 11-3 while Ninik defeated Chan Mei Mei of Hong Kong 11-9, 11-4.

Men's doubles top seeded Kim Dong-moon and Ha Tae-kwon of South Korea beat home Malaysian rookies of Hamdhoon Rasheed and Mamdhoon Rasheed 15-1, 15-1.

Second seeded Antonius and Denny Kantono of Indonesia withdrew from the championships because Denny had to wait for his wife who delivered a baby early this month.

Juniors Ade Lukas and Santoso Sugiharjo beat Nguyen Anh Hoang and Ho Van Loi of Vietnam 15-10, 15-9 while Andreas and Luluk Hadiyanto won against Vincent Lobo and Jascel P Ismail of India 15-5, 15-5.

A new partnership of Tri Kusheryanto and Bambang Suprianto eliminated Keita Matsuda and Tadashi Ohtsuka of Japan 15-7, 15- 13. (yan)