VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam’s top badminton player, Nguyen Tien Minh, needed three sets to get a hard win over Malaysia’s Muhammad Hafiz Hashim on May 5, to enter the quarterfinals of the Malaysian Grand Prix Gold tournament.

 
To get into this round, Minh has had two wins against Chinese player Yuekun Chen and Malaysian player Hafiz Hashim.

 

In the match against Hafiz Hashim from the host country, Tien Minh, who ranks 8th in the world, was not highly appreciated because in the four pervious games, he lost three and won only one.

 

This time, Tien Minh still lost the first set 19-21, before recovering to win the next two 21-18 and 21-6.

 

His next rival is Indonesian player Sony Dwi Kuncoro, now ranking 29th in the world, who beat Ziliang Deret Wong of Singapore 2-0 on the same day. Earlier, Ziliang Deret Wong defeated Vietnam’s, Nguyen Hoang Nam in the first round of the tournament.

 

As the No.3 seed, Tien Minh will have to be careful because in their only confrontation at the Open Indonesia Tournament 2007, Ziliang Deret Wong beat Tien Minh 2-1.

 

If he is able to make it to the semi-finals, Minh could run into the Chinese seventh seed and a tough Bao Chunlai, who cruised into the quarter-finals after making light work of three previous rounds.

 

Previously, in the second round, Minh took his revenge on Yuekun Chen, who beat Minh in the quarter-finals at the Viet Nam Open 2010. Minh easily beat Yuekun 21-12, 21-13 in 32 minutes.

 

In the first round, Minh needed three sets to beat Pawar Anand of India 10-21, 21-7, 21-16 after completing the first set.

 

PV