Badminton: Chinese teenager stuns Danish badminton star Gade at China Open
BEIJING : World number two Peter Gade was stunned by Chinese teenager Gong Weijie in straight sets as he failed to reach the quarter-finals of the China Open.
The Danish star never recovered from a slow start as the unseeded Gong, 17, ran out 15-8, 15-11 winner at the Tianhe stadium in Guangzhou, southern China.
"Gong is amazing and he played very well tonight," said Gade, a former world number one.
"I knew little about him and now I think I will have one more tough opponent in the future competitions," he added.
Gong, runner-up in this year's world junior championship, admitted that his victory was a surprise.
"I didn't expect to beat Gade. He is a world known veteran anyway," he said.
"It's the first time I met him, but I didn't think too much and just concentrated on the competition."
Other Chinese teenagers Li Yu, 19, and Chen Jin, 18, also progressed with victories over fourth-seeded Indonesian Sony Dwi Kuncoro and Agus Hariyanto of Hong Kong respectively, while China's world number one Lin Dan and Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia also eased into the last eight.
China also booked half the berths in the women's singles quarter-finals in the 250,000 dollar competition, with the top seven women's seeds including Olympic champion Zhang Ning all advancing.
Zhang beat fellow Chinese Wang Yihan 11-5, 11-3, while second-seed Gong Ruina and third-seeded Zhou Mi also beat Chinese shuttlers to move into the last eight in the women's singles in the 250,000 dollar tournament.
Number four seed Xie Xingfang, also from China, defeated Kelly Morgan of Wales in straight sets 11-3, 11-2. She will meet Zhang in Friday's quarterfinals.
Meanwhile fourth seed Hongyan Pi of France outperformed Liu Jian of China 3-11, 11-5, 13-11 in an 85-minute battle and Dane Tine Rasmussen conquered China's Li Wenyan 11-7, 11-9 to also secure quarter-final berths.
- AFP
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