Malaysia stay on course for five out of six gold in badminton

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NEW DELHI, Oct 11 (AFP): Malaysia maintained their hopes of making a bid for five of the six Commonwealth Games badminton titles on Monday with world number one players Lee Chong Wei and Koo Kien Keat leading the way.
Having already won gold in the team event, the Malaysians have followed up by getting players into the quarter-finals of four of the five individual events, upsetting the seedings in the mixed doubles in the process.
Koo, world number one in men's doubles, continued his successful temporary pairing with Chin Eei Hui, world ranked six in women's doubles, by bringing down the sixth seeded Canadians, Toby Ng and Grace Gao 21-7, 21- 16 in the mixed.
Misbun was particularly impressed with the performance of Wong Mew Choo in Malaysia's 3-1 win over India in the team final on Friday.
The second-seeded Malaysian followed that by reaching the last eight of the women's singles on Monday with an energy-conserving 21-5, 21-10 win over Elena Johnson of Guernsey.
Lee Chong Wei meanwhile prevented his opponent from reaching double figures at all, his 21-9, 21-9 win over Juma Muwowo of Xambia earning him a last eight meeting with Chen Yong Zhao of Singapore.
Koo and Tan Boon Heong are almost as hot a pair of favourites in the men's doubles as Lee is in the singles, and they coasted comfortably to a 21-11, 21- 18 win over Joe Morgan and James Phillips of Wales.
However Chin's hopes of upsetting the seedings a second time narrowly failed when she and Woon Khe Wei, substituting for the injured Wong Pei Tty, were beaten 15-21, 21-10, 21-16 by a thrilling late push in front of a roaring crowd by the second-seeded Indians, Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Michimanda.
There were two upsets in women's singles, as the two leading Singaporean hopes were both beaten.
Fu Mingtian, the seventh seed, went down 21-15, 21-19 to Huang Chia-Chi, who twice played in the Olympics for Taiwan and has come out of retirement to represent Australia, while Xing Ailing, the eighth seed, lost 23-21, 21-12 to Michelle Li, the 18-year-old Canadian.