Nguyen Tien Minh of Viet Nam continued his bid for a first badminton world championship title with a second convincing victory yesterday in Paris.
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| Progress in Paris: Viet Nam\'s Nguyen Tien Minh hits a return to Estonian player Raul Must during their Badminton World Championships second round match yesterday at the Pierre de Coubertin Stadium in Paris. Minh won 21-14, 21-10 to move into the third round. |
Following an easy match in Monday\'s first round, Minh beat Raul Must of Estonia 21-14, 21-10 to move into the third round.
Minh entered the world top ten last year and grabbed several triumphs at the Grand Prix and Super Series events but he has yet to win a major title.
Viet Nam\'s top player, who was ousted at the quarter-final stage last year, is expected to continue his progress in Paris and improve his world ranking.
Minh who is seeded No 7 did not give Must a look in throughout the match although the Estonian put up a bit of a fight in the second set when he took the first serve.
Must who trailed for the whole of the first set went ahead in the early minutes of the second set taking a 4-1 lead. However it didn\'t last for long and Minh quickly levelled at 5-5. The world No 42 then tried to take advantage of his near 2m height to attack Minh and managed to stay with his two-time Olympic opponent until the score was 10-10.
It was the turning point of the game as Minh showed all his skill and experience to take the next 11 points in a row to finish his second match in 42 minutes.
Minh, who\'s usually considered to be physically weaker than most of his opponents, surprised many people yesterday, producing smashes that reached 245km per hour. His opponent was clearly struggling to deal with them, hampered by his height.
In the next round, Minh will play No 13 seed Park Sung-hwan from South Korea who defeated Vladimir Ivanov of Russia 21-16, 21-13.
The third round rivals have met each other several times in the past with mixed results.
Minh is the only Vietnamese representative in Paris after his teammate\'s withdrawal and failure to qualify.
Indonesia\'s Taufik Hidayat, seeded No 5, joined Minh in round three after beating Chinese Taipei\'s Yu Hsin Hsieh 19-21, 21-19, 21-9.
The Athens Olympics gold medal winner said he was not at his best before the start of the tournament and has produced unconvincing displays in his first two matches. He had to work very hard yesterday and still lost the first set to the unseeded Yu before coming from behind to win the match.
However, his compatriot Simon Santoro was unhappy after having to withdraw, due to injury. His departure handed a third round berth to Taiwanese Hsuan Yi Hsueh.
Santoro was the second Indonesian to withdraw from the championships after sixth seed Sony Dwi Kuncoro failed to take the court just minutes before his match was scheduled to start because of back pain.
In other matches, No 3 seed Lin Dan of China beat Sweden\'s Henri Hurskainen 21-13, 21-15.
In the women\'s event, Jie Yao of the Netherlands who ranks 11 won 21-13, 16-21, 21-15 over Kristina Ludikove of the Czech Republic and earlier in the day, Indian star Saina Nehwal overcame Chen Hsiao Huan of Taipei 20-22, 21-15, 21-8. The No 2 seed had a bad start, losing the first set, but recovered quickly to win in 47 minutes while Adrianti Firdasari of Indonesia lost to South Korean Kim Moon-hi 21-13, 15-21, 18-21.
The world championship started on Monday and the finals will be held on Sunday.
