VietNamNet Bridge – Top Vietnamese badminton player Nguyen Tien Minh yesterday, July 13, defeated host player Agusriadi Wijaya Amphie by 21-14 and 21-11 in the second round of the US Open Grand Prix Gold Championships in California, USA.

Tien Minh.
The 3rd seed needed only 28 minutes to qualify for the third round where he will meet with Indian Kashyap Parupalli today.

Kashyap, ranked No 12, yesterday sent Austrian David Obernosterer home after his 21-18, 21-23 and 21-13 victory.

Minh, having lost most of his matches against his Indian rival on previous occasions, managed to the last one at the the Guangzhou Asian Games by 21-14 and 22-20.

During the first round, the Vietnamese Olympian trounced Jan Frohlich from the Czech Republic by 21-5 and 21-4 in 21 minutes, becoming the only Vietnamese player left after teammate Nguyen Hoang Nam lost by 15-21, 21-18 and 14-21 to German Dieter Domke in the first round.

In other news, No 1 seeded Taufik Hydayat of Indonesia easily beat Tien Chen Chou of Chinese Taipei by 21-16 and 21-16 while 4rth seeded Boonsak Ponsana from Thailand beat Brazilian Daniel Paiola by 21-15 and 21-14 and Chunlai Bao, the No 5 seed from China, triumphed over Carl Baxter of England by 21-13 and 21-15.

In the men's doubles event, Bui Bang Duc and Dao Manh Thang of Viet Nam defeated hosts Sameera Gunatileka and Vincent Nguy by 21-16 and 21-13. Duc and Thang are set to play Hiroyuki Endo and Kenichi Hayakawa of Japan today.

Vietnamese duo Nguyen Hoang Nam and Tran Thanh Hai, who managed to trump Gen Li and Cheng Liu of China by 21-8 and 25-23, are set to take on rivals Ingo Kindervater and Johannes Schoettler of Germany.

The Vietnamese players will have their work cut out for them facing Japan, seeded 4th, and Germany, seeded 3rd.

The US$120,000 tournament, also an Olympic qualifying event, includes men's and women's singles, doubles and mixed doubles. It will conclude on Saturday.

As part of the prise money, both men's and women's champions will walk away with $9,000 each.

Last year 287 players from 32 countries competed at the event. Britain's Rajiv Ouseph taking the men's singles title while Chinese Lin Zhu won the women's title.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News