Basel: Two-time Olympic champion Lin Dan from China powered past Christian Kirchmayr of Switzerland 21-11, 21-6 in 30 minutes to enter the second round of Swiss Open on Wednesday.
Lin who suffered a shocked first round exit at last week’s All England, will face Lee Dong Keun of Korea next.
At the same time, China’s Rio Olympic Chen Long also breezed past Yu Igarashi of Japan to face teammate Huang Yuxiang in the second round.
In other men’s singles actions, Malaysia’s independent player Daren Liew fought hard to rally from a 5-10 deficit in the second set and managed to see off Toma Junior Popov of France 21-12, 21-19. Liew will face No. 4 seed Anthony Sinisuka Ginting of Indonesia on Thursday.
Lee Zii Jia who just rise to World No. 20 in the latest BWF rankings released on Tuesday, was no match against World No. 10 Jonatan Christie of Indonesia, losing 21-9, 21-17 in just 29 minutes.
Christie will set up second round battle with Subhankar Dey of India.
There were several upsets to be found in the men’s doubles draw during the opening day. The 2017 World Champions and No. 5 seeds Liu Cheng and Zhang Nan bid an early farewell to the BWF Super 300 event after losing to Japan’s unseeded pair Hiroki Okamura/Masayuki Onodera 12-21, 17-21.
Men’s doubles No. 2 seeds Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen of Denmark also stopped their journey at Swiss Open after losing the first round in straight-sets to India’s Pranaav Jerry Chopra/Chirag Shetty 16-21, 18-21.
Meanwhile, the unseeded Malaysian men’s pair Mohamad Arif Ab Latif Arif/Nur Mohd Azriyn Ayub Azriyn was forced to dig deep to overcome unseeded pair from Japan, Keiichiro Matsui/Yoshinori Takeuchi 14-21, 21-19, 21-19. Arif/Azriyn will face India’s qualifiers Arun George/Sanyam Shukla in the next round.
