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)