AUSTRALIA OPEN 2010 QF – Min Seo, Minatsu on track for 2

By Don Hearn, Badzine Correspondent.  Photos: BadmintonPhoto (archives)

As quarter-finals day wrapped up in Melbourne, the Australian team added two names to the list of semi-finalists, adding to Saliya Gunaratne / Chad Whitehead’s earlier booking in the men’s doubles.  First, 2009 women’s doubles winner and former Taiwan player Huang Chia Chi was able to fend off a late challenge by Korea’s Kang Hae Won and despite blowing a 16-9 lead in the second, Huang closed it out 21-18, 21-19 to reach the semi-finals.

Then in the last match of the day, Ben Mccarthy / Tang He Tian took care of Malaysians Yogendran Krishnan / Anita Raj Kaur to advance in mixed doubles.  Huang goes on to face another Korean, Seo Yoon Hee while Mccarthy/Tang will face Japan’s Hajime Komiyama / Sayuri Asahara.  Both Asahara and Seo are also going to be active in women’s doubles.

On Saturday, Seo Yoon Hee will team up with fellow singles specialist Kang to face Japanese youngsters Minatsu Mitani and Megumi Taruno, who themselves both competed, against one another, in fact, in women’s singles.  The 18-year-old Minatsu goes up against another Korean, Hwang Hye Youn (pictured), who is playing in her first tournament since injuring her foot last October and her first international tournament since the Worlds last August.  Both players are unseeded and have just finished eliminating two seeded players in a row in straight games.

Korea’s Kim Min Seo and Japan’s Kenichi Hayakawa are the other two double semi-finalists and they will face each other in the semi-finals, Kim with Cho Gun Woo and Hayakawa with Ayaka Takahashi.  Kim advanced easily in women’s doubles as well but Cho and 19-year-old Kim Dong Min were not so lucky, taking one game but in the end finding themselves unable to cope with men’s doubles top seeds Gan Teik Chai / Tan Bin Shen (pictured below), who won the match in three.

The tough Malaysians are the next stop for Hayakawa and men’s doubles partner Hiroyuki Endo.  Korea is still alive in men’s doubles, however, as singles specialists Park Tae Sang and Kang Woo Kyum knocked off second-seeded Oliver Leydon-Davis /    Henry Tam of New Zealand in two quick games.

In men’s singles, Korea’s Kim Dong Min gained some valuable experience in his first ever international tournament but was outclassed by Vietnam’s Nguyen Tien Minh.  The top seed goes on to play India Open winner Alamsyah Yunus after the Indonesian won easily over Korea’s Park Tae Sang.  Once again, however, there is one more Korean in the mix as Hwang Jung Woon came back from one game down to beat Yoga Pratama 18-21, 21-18, 21-9 and erase the possibility of an all-Indonesian final.

For complete results, CLICK HERE