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Thailand Open: Sun Jun Falls To Another Teammate

** This NEW SHUTTLENWS report is presented by YANG YANG Badminton Products and their Ontario (Canada) agents - SHAH Enterprises **

July 9, 1999 (NEW SHUTTLENWS) - Badminton's men's singles world champion Sun Jun of China who this week took over the world number one ranking from Denmark's Peter Gade did not get to celebrate his top-gun status in style as he lost to one of his teammates for the second week in a row in the quarterfinal stage. The world champion was beaten by Chinese second-stringer Ji Xinpeng today 15-17 and 7-15 at the Thailand Open in Bangkok.

At the Malaysian Open last week, Sun lost to eventual champion Luo Yigang 8-15 and 3-15.

With Sun's defeat, Malaysian veteran Rashid Sidek who is seeded fourth has become the favourite to land the Thailand Open men's singles crown. Sidek today defeated China's Dong Jiong 15-10, 6-15 and 15-7 in a match that took over 1 hour to play.

Sidek will face Ji in one of tomorrow's semifinals. Third-seed Chen Gang of China will play his seventh-seeded teammate Chen Hong in the other semifinal.

Chen Gang beat fellow Chinese player Chen Wei 15-9 and 15-11 to book his spot in the final four, while Chen Hong defeated Xia Xuanze, another Chinese player, 15-9 and 15-10.

In men's doubles, Pramote Teerawiwatana and Tesana Panvisvas of Thailand came from behind to upend top seeds Zhang Jun and Zhang Wei of China 7-15, 15-8 and 15-7 to the cheers of the more than 2,000 Thai badminton fans in the audience.

Peter Gade of Denmark, who had held the world number one ranking in men's singles for 62 weeks before surrendering the top spot to Sun Jun this week, did not play in his specialty at the tournament. Gade instead competed in the men's doubles event with fellow Dane Jesper Larsen. The Gade-Larsen duo made it as far as the round-of-16 yesterday where they were defeated by Hadi Saputra and Endra Mulyajaya, an Indonesian pairing just out of the junior ranks 15-9, 15-17 and 11-15.

Following are some of the results of today's other matches.

Mixed Doubles
Semifinals
Liu Yong and Ge Fei (China) beat Zhang Jun and Gao Ling (China) 13-15, 17-16, 15-7
Michael Sogaard and Rikke Olsen (Denmark) beat Wahyu Agung and Emma Ermawati (Indonesia) 15-2, 15-9

Women's Singles
Quarterfinals
Dai Yun (China) beat Sujitra Ekmongkolpaisarn (Thailand) 11-2, 11-7
Zhou Mi (China) beat Aparna Popat (India) 11-1, 11-1
Lee Kyung Won (Korea) beat Zhang Ning (China) 5-11, 11-9, 11-4
Gong Ruina (China) beat Huang Chia Chi (Taiwan) 11-7, 11-1

Women's Doubles
Quarterfinals
Qin Yiyuan and Gao Ling (China) beat Chen Li Chin and Tsai Hui Min (Taiwan) 15-13, 15-2
Eliza Nathanael and Deyana Lomban (Indonesia) beat Yao Jie and Zhou Mi (China) 13-15, 15-10, 15-5
Lu Ying and Huang Sui (China) beat Helene Kirkegaard and Rikke Olsen (Denmark) 11-15, 15-4, 15-3
Vita Marisa and Emma Ermawati (Indonesia) beat Sujitra Ekmongkolpaisarn and Saralee Thunthongkam (Thailand) 15-12, 15-8

Men's Doubles
Quarterfinals
Michael Sogaard and Jim Laugesen (Denmark) beat Rosman Razak and Chew Choon Eng (Malaysia) 15-6, 5-15, 15-4
Hadi Saputra and Endra Mulyajaya (Indonesia) beat Yuzo Kubota and Takuya Takehana (Japan) 15-11, 15-9

(yyn/ds)