Tony and Halim reach men's doubles final
Tony and Halim reach men's doubles final
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia best hope in the men's doubles Tony
Gunawan and Halim Heryanto managed to survive their semifinals
test by eliminating Malaysians Chew Choon Eng and Chan Chong Ming
12-15, 15-5, 15-13 in a tough 80-minute match.
Tony and Halim will meet the winner of the match between
Malaysians Choong Tan Fook and Lee Wan Wah and South Koreans Kim
Dong-moon and Ha Tae-kwon in Saturday's late semifinals.
Indonesia has ensured a final berth after setting up an all-
Indonesian men's singles semifinals between Olympics silver
medalist Hendrawan and world number three Taufik Hidayat.
One of the Indonesians will challenge world number one Peter
Gade Christensen of Denmark, who ousted Chen Hong of China 17-14,
15-2 in 31 minutes.
The Danish ace showed he had learned from those defeats with a
steely performance against Chen, refusing to get rattled even
after the Chinese player fought back from 14-11 in the first game
to level at 14-14.
Gade Christensen blew Chen away with a string of spectacular
leaping smashes in the second game to wrap up a convincing win.
"After what happened at the Olympics and the last world
championships, it was so important for me to win here," said Gade
Christensen, who greeted victory by collapsing to the court in
joy at the San Pablo Stadium.
"Chen Hong is one of the best players in the world, but today
everything went the way I wanted it to. It was a bit like a chess
match at times, we just kept looking at each other to work out
what the other was thinking," he said, as quoted by AFP.
Gade Christensen was defeated in the 1999 championships'
semifinals before his home crowd by Chinese Taipei Fung Permadi,
who eventually lost to Sun Jun of China in the final.
China is assured a title in the women's singles after setting
up an all-Chinese semifinals.
Fifth seed Gong Zhichao was beaten by third seeded compatriot
Gong Ruina 13-10, 11-4. Despite her lowly seeding, Gong Zhichao
had been the overwhelming favorite to win her first world title
this week.
Gong Ruina will play another Chinese player, second seed Zhou
Mi in Sunday's final. Zhou defeated eighth-seed Zhang Ning 11-5,
11-9.
China had taken a title from the mixed doubles after Olympics
champions Zhang Jun and Gao Ling proved that they were too strong
for heavy favorite and defending champions Kim Dong-moon and Ra
Kyung-min of South Korea ending in a 15-10, 12-15, 17-16 result
in the final on Saturday.
The Chinese duo came back from 16-14 down in the final game to
seal an epic victory.
"I am very happy to win the world title," a beaming Gao said,
as quoted by Xinhua. "This is my first world title. It's
different from becoming the Olympic champions."
Zhang added: "We played very well in the beginning, but when
we led 14-9 in the third game, I lost my concentration because I
was overexcited. I made several errors and let the rivals pull
back.
"When trailing 14-16, I told Gao Ling that we had nothing to
lose. Just do it! Fortunately, we did not let the chance slip."
(yan)