Seoul: Taiwan’s world number one women’s singles player Tai Tzu Ying failed to reach the quarter-finals of the 2017 Korean Open after suffering a second-round defeat at SK Handball Stadium in Seoul on Thursday.
Tai who won three Superseries titles this year – Malaysia Open, Singapore Open, and Australian Open, went down to Japanese player Minatsu Mitani in a 50 minutes battle.
Despite fighting back and seizing the second game, the Taiwanese star could not find the rhythm in the decider, had to accept the uncanny defeat by going down to Mitani 23-21, 14-21, 21-18.
An uphill battle awaits Mitani in the quarter-finals as she is set to take on fifth-seeded Indian player Pusarla V Sindhu who made her way into the quarter-finals by wrapping up Thai player Nitchaon Jindapol 22-20, 21-17.
In men’s singles, home favorite and World No. 1 Son Wan-Ho of Korea kept his bid alive for his first Korea Open title in Seoul, outlasting Indian qualifier Parupalli Kashyap 21-16, 17-21, 21-16 in 77 minutes.
Son who won the bronze medal at the 2017 World Championships three weeks ago will meet Sameer Verma of India on Friday.
Brice Leverdez of France who beat Lee Chong Wei in the first round of World Championships last month and No. 4 seed Chou Tien-Chen of Taiwan on Wednesday, proved once again he could only do extremely well in the first few rounds of tournament, but lacked the consistency and the power that the men’s game had come to demand, losing to Japanese qualifier Kenta Nishimoto 19-21, 13-21 on Thursday.
Nishimoto will play Anthony Sinisuka Ginting of Indonesia next.
