Dev S Sukumar/ badmintonmania.com Hyderabad, 7 September 2005: India's Aparna Popat suffered a crushing second-round loss in the Asian Badminton Confederation championships at Hyderabad. Indonesia's Adrianti Firdasri handed Aparna a pasting in the third game, winning at love. There were other promising Indian performances, however. Young Sagar Chopra took the first game off Lee Hyun Il, before the Korean recovered to win in three. Anand Pawar, son of former international Uday, stretched Roslin Hashim in the first game before the experienced Malaysian pulled away comfortably in the second. Junior champion Saina Nehwal had a match point against Wong Mew Chew before the Malaysian staged a great escape -- coming back from 7-10 in the second game. P Kashyap, who along with Saina Nehwal, is training at Gopichand's academy, threatened to pull off a win against Ikeda Yuichi of Japan but lost his way in the third. The favourites, however, cruised along. Sony Dwi Kuncoro and Boonsak Ponsana had little trouble against their second round opponents. Boonsak Ponsana beat Jung Hoon Min of Korea 15-11, 15-2. Jung troubled Boonsak in the early part of the first game with his big jump smashes, pulling up close at 11-12. Boonsak looked distracted, getting caught at the net a number of times as his opponent lifted over his head, and even misjudged a few tosses at the baseline. After a tense rally at 11-13 Boonsak raised his level in time and clinched the game with a smash. In the second it was almost a no-contest as he seemed to have found his rhythm. He parried all of Jung's big smashes with ease -- his backhand defence was almost impenetrable on the day. A 4-0 lead became 6-2. Jung rallied back to 5-6 thanks to three successive errors from the Thai, but Boonsak then closed it out at 15-2. Saina Nehwal almost pulled off an upset over Wong Mew Chew. Blessed with tremendous speed and power, this Hyderabadi is the next big thing in Indian badminton. She left her Malaysian opponent dazed with her speedy, attacking style of play, winning the first game and having a 10-7 lead in the second. An elementary error cost her the game and match. Presented with an easy kill at the net, Saina tried a deceptive drop -- only to see the shutle miss the sideline by an inch. Her game crumbled from then on. Meanwhile, another woman casualty on the day was Salakjit Ponsana. The 5th seed was dumped by Hataya Yoshimi of Japan. Top seed Wang Chen had no problem in her opening match against Faezi Gulnaz of Iran. The Iranian, who like her women compatriots, is playing her first international outside her country, lost 1 and 1. The Iranian women are playing in a specially designed outfit which covers their head and body, and have received permission from the ABC to play in it. Wang Chen will play promising Indian junior Aditi Mutatkar in the next round. Other Indians to progress were Arvind Bhat and Chetan Anand. In the absence of the Chinese, they have a good draw and can perhaps go all the way to the semis.
Thanks for the report...I had a hard time searching for results. Hmm...an interesting win for Firda, who had also won the 1* New Zealand Open recently. I think Firda is a better player than Nana (Fransisca Ratnasari), although I haven't really watched her playing. I think she can advance to the quarter-final now since the Chinese player (Chen Li) she would be facing is withdrawn from the competition. A tough match against the 3/4th seeded Kaori Mori is up next if she can clear the next hurdle! Nana should also win her first match in Hyderabad but will face another seeded Japanese (Kanako Yokenura) in the Round of 1/16. Assuming that Firda reaches the quarter-final and Nana reaches the next round, their world ranking should shoot up to somewhere between 30-40, which is definitely a very good progress for Hendrawan. A top 20-30 world ranking by the end of the year should be achievable given that they will definitely participate in the 6* Indonesian Open and perhaps the 2* and 3* Greece and Taiwan Open respectively.
Yes... Technically Firda is better than Nana. I ever saw the both shuttler play. I think Firda can reach final. But It's difficult for Nana as hongkong's Wang chen is in the same part line with her.
Firda will face Kaori Mori in the quarter-final and thats a tough fight. Assuming she goes through, Wong Meow Cho or Eriko Hirose will be up next. I don't think she can go all the way to the final....a quarter-final placing in a 4* tournament will be satisfactory enough for her and Hendrawan and she will be in the top 40 by next week. Nana will face Kanako Yonekura today and I think she will fall too.... Overall, it should be a good experience for them..competing in a 4* tournament. Next in their schedule will be the 6* Indonesian Open 2005. Assuming they can play in the main draw (with all the Chinese players withdrawn), one or even two victories will be wonderful! I do hope they can at least be in the top 25 or 30 by end of the year, as Ivana Lie mentioned in her column at Bola on Tuesday.
