Fuzhou: Women’s singles No. 1 seed Tai Tzu Ying produced dashing court coverage and imposingly aggressive playing style to claim the first set against Rio Olympic champion Carolina Marin 21-16.
Marin was in huge trouble when Tai quickly race to 9-0 before Marin finally able to score the first point at 1-9 in the second set. Marin continued to struggle and then decided to retire from the match when Tai was leading at 13-1.
“I could tell Marin was not at her best which led her to give up eventually. I was trying to adjust myself and get into the rhythm as soon as possible,” said Tai.
In an unexpected result, newly-crowned World Champion and World No. 6 PV Sindhu was knocked out of the Fuzhou China Open first round by World No. 42 Pai Yu Po of Taiwan 21-13, 18-21, 21-19 in 74 minutes.
In mixed doubles, No. 1 seeds Zheng Siwei/Huang Yaqiong cruised into the second round after shrugging off Marvin Seidel/Linda Efler of Germany 21-16, 21-13.
“We made some mistakes in the first set. Fortunately, we are able to identify our mistakes and fix them before the Olympics,” said Huang.
“Huang and I have been playing for two years and we definitely have our ups and downs. Hopefully we can go through this period quickly,” said Zheng.
Meanwhile, Tan Kian Meng/Lai Pei Jing of Malaysia successfully entered the second round after seeing off Lee Yang/Yang Ching Tun of Taiwan 21-10, 21-16 to set up the second round meeting between the winners of No. 3 seeds Dechapol Puavaranukroh/Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Thailand or Lee Jhe-huei/Hsu Ya Ching of Taiwan.
