Hong Kong: Tee Jing Yi of Malaysia made it to the women’s singles quarter-finals at Hong Kong Open with a huge upset over No. 2 seed Wang Yihan of China on Thursday.
Tee who was trailing 17-19 in the first set, raised her energy to reel off four straight points to win the game 21-19; however, Wang responded with very aggressive play to overwhelm her and Tee lost 14-21 in the second set. In the third set, Tee managed to keep a cool head and eventually started to take advantage of Wang’s unforced errors to close out the decider with 21-15.
Unseeded Liu Xin of China also pulled off another major upset by outlasting her teammate top seed Wang Shixian 21-16,9-21,21-15.
Tee will play reigning world champion Carolina Marin on Friday. The Spaniard defeated Malaysia’s Lydia Cheah 21-10, 21-10 in just 25 minutes.
“Wang probably wasn’t playing at her best, and I took full advantage of that. Furthermore, I have nothing to lose against Wang,” said Jing Yi.
India’s Saina Nehwal had an easy outing as she took just 31 minutes to outplay United States’ Beiwen Zhang 21-16 21-13 in the second round. The Indian will play sixth seed Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei in the quarter-finals. Another Indian women’s singles shutter – P. V Sindhu, lost to lesser-ranked Nozomi Okuhara of Japan 17-21, 21-13, 11-21.
In men’s singles, Malaysian shuttler Chong Wei Feng suffered yet another second round exit to Takuma Ueda of Japan 18-21, 21-15, 20-22 in a 76 minutes battle; rallied from a set down, top seed Chen Long overcame Rajiv Ouseph of England 19-21,21-10,21-14 in 65 minutes; meanwhile, K. Srikanth, who had defeated two-time Olympic champion Lin Dan in China Open Super Series Premier men’s singles final on Sunday, faced stiff resistance before prevailing over his Thai opponent Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk 21-19, 23-21 in a second round contest that lasted 39 minutes.
The Korean team took a massive blow to its men’s doubles team on Thursday where world number one Lee Yong-dae/Yoo Yeon-seong and reigning world champion Ko Sung-Hyun/Shin Baek-choel were knocked out of the tournament.
Fifth seeds Bao Yixin-Wang Xiaoli proved they were just too good for the world number 35 women’s doubles Lim Yin Loo-Lee Meng Yean of Malaysia by winning 19-21, 21-16, 21-9 in 52 minutes.
