VietNamNet Bridge – The country's top badminton player Nguyen Tien Minh dropped three places in the international rankings released by the Badminton World Federation last Thursday.

The decline to 14th place follows a poor performance at the London Olympic Games where he was eliminated in the group stages with one win and one loss.

It is the 29-year-old's lowest rank in the last three years. He had achieved a high of sixth place in July 2010.

Minh starts his defence of the Viet Nam Open in HCM City as top seed today, Aug .

* HCM City to host kung fu championships

The eighth Asian Wushu Championships will begin tomorrow at the Phu Tho Gymnasium in HCM City with 350 martial artists from 22 countries and territories taking part.

They will compete for 38 sets of medals in taolu (performance competition) and shanshou (combat competition).

The former has 22 sets on offer, including in changquan, nanquan, and taijiquan with bare hands, dao, nandao, jian, and taijijian with short weapons, gun, nangun, and qiang with long weapons, and women's and men's dual events.

There are 16 sets of medals on offer in Shanshou – 11 (48, 52, 56, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, and over 90 kg) for men and five (48, 52, 56, 65, 70) for women.

Vietnamese athletes are rated high in shanshou and the country targets winning two to four gold medals.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News