Women's doubles duo Jin, Wong ease past Austrian opponents at World Championships
SINGAPORE — Women's doubles pair Jin Yujia and Crystal Wong, the only Singaporean shuttlers involved at the BWF World Championships on Tuesday (23 August), cruised into the second round after a straight-games win over Austria's Serena Au Yeong and Katharina Hochmeir.
Jin and Wong, ranked 80th in the world, defeated their world No.101 opponents 21-12, 21-7 in just 27 minutes to seal their passage into the round of 32.
They will next face veteran Japanese pair and three-time World Championships runners-up Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota.
Jin and Wong joined two other doubles pairs, as well as defending men's singles champion Loh Kean Yew, the round of 32.
Loh will face Honduras' Kevin Cordon in the last-32 on Wednesday, after defeating Spain's Pablo Abian in his opening-round match on Monday.
Men's doubles pair Terry Hee and Loh Kean Hean also advanced on Monday, defeating France's Christo and Timo Junior Popov to set up a clash with Malaysia's Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi.
And Commonwealth Games gold medallists Hee and wife Jessica Tan received a walkover in their opening round when England's Callum Hemming and Jessica Pugh withdrew. The mixed doubles duo will play Japan's Yuki Kaneko and Misaki Matsumoto next.
Top seeds advance comfortably
Elsewhere at the World Championships, the top seeds all advanced without much trouble at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium.
Men's world No.1 Viktor Axelsen took 41 minutes to dispatch the Netherlands' Mark Caljouw 21-19, 21-10, while the women's world No.1 Akane Yamaguchi spent seven minutes less on the court in beating Indonesia's Gregoria Mariska Tunjung 21-12, 21-15.
Yamaguchi's rivals, world No.3 An Se-young and world No.5 Carolina Marin also reached the last-16 without much trouble. South Korean An defeated Vietnam's Nguyen Thuy Linh 21-18, 21-10 in 36 minutes, while Spain's Marin - a two-time world champion - took as many minutes to oust Canada's Zhang Wen Yu 21-16, 21-14.
Taiwanese men's world No.4 Chou Tien-chen was comfortable in negotiating past Canada's Jason Anthony Ho-Shue 21-15, 21-12, while Indonesia's top 10 duo Anthony Sinisuka Ginting and Jonatan Christie also had little trouble against their round-of-32 opponents.
World No.6 Ginting handed Mauritius' Georges Julien Paul a 21-10, 21-16 defeat in just 29 minutes, while world No.7 Christie eased past Germany's Kai Schaefer 21-4, 21-16 in 38 minutes.
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