Vietnamese badminton ace Nguyen Tien Minh, the world’s number 7, booked a place to the second round of the 2011 Yonex Australian Open Grand Prix Gold after securing a 2-0 win over a Malaysian contender today.

The defending champion and second seed Minh spent only 39 minutes to beat Yogendran Khrishnan 21-16 21-13 and will take on Yu Jui Lin of the Chinese Taipei tomorrow. Yu had won Daniel Gouw 21-13 21-8.

The first seed of Thailand Boonsak Ponsana, who is a potential rival of Minh for the title, also won Yu Hsien Lin of Taipei in the first round and will meet Yuhan Tan of Belgium tomorrow.

Minh was drawn in a competition field where he has to encounter the third seed Yun Hu, the 6th seed Sho Sasaki and the 10th seed Muhammad Hafiz Hashim as the highest-seeded players on his way to defend his title.

Meanwhile, the first seed Boonsak Ponsana of Thailand has to face other highly-seeding players as Tommy Sugiarto (9) and Kazushi Yamada (5).

“This year’s tournament would be very interesting if Minh and Ponsana stage the final battle,” said chief of the event’s organizing board Peter Roberts.

The event is organized from April 5-10 with 376 players partaking.