2009 Badminton World Championships: fourth day

 Thursday August 13th Results - Saina Nehwal (at left) celebrates her third round win against Bulgaria's Petya Nedelcheva.  Saina needed to rally back from a first set loss to win the next two 21-18, 21-10.   It definetely helped to have the thousands of fans at the Balayogi Indoor Stadium, vocalizing their support.   "It was a tough game today. But I am happy with the fitness level. I was not feeling tired and by the third game I was at my best. I think tomorrow will be a tougher match," said Saina.  Nehwal has just recently recovered from the chicken pox, and will have to bring her 'A' game in the quarter-finals when she faces seconded seeded Lin Wang.  Denmark's Tine Rasmussen celebrates after scoring a point against Hong Kong's Yip Pui Yin during their women's singles match at the World Badminton Championships in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad August 13, 2009.
 
There was also celebrating on court number one for German Julianne Schenk, who beat fourth seeded Yihan Wang from China in straight sets 21-18, 21-15.  This sets up a quarter-final matchup with eight seeded Pi Hongyan of France.  Pi reached the next round with a 21-13, 21-14 victory against 15th seeded Indonesian Maria Kristin Yulianti.
 
China will have a strong showing on the women's singles side as Xie Xingfang and Lan Lu will also be competing in the quarterfinals.  Zhou Mi of Hong Kong, the world number one ranked player, also advanced today after a decisive 21-11, 21-18 win over Japan's Ai Goto.  Tine Rasmussen of Denmark (at right) round out the women's qualifiers as she battled to a three set win 21-13, 11-21, 21-15 against Hong Kong's thirteenth ranked Pui Yin Yip.  
 
 
In men's singles play on Thursday Lin Dan of China barely needed any time at all to win 21-11, 21-11 against Dicky Palyama of the Netherlands.  Peter Hoeg Gade beat  21-11, 21-12 win over Chinese Hong Kong's Yan Kit Chan.  Gade has yet to drop a set at this years tournament, however he now faces Dan in the quarterfinal.  Lee Chong Wei won his third round match in 32 minutes against Vietnam's Tien Ming Nguyen  21-13, 21-17.  Wei will now face Sony Dwi Kuncoro in the quarters;  Kuncoro eliminated India's Chet Anand 21-16, 21-16, much to the disappointment of the crowd.  Tomorrow court number 1 will see Simon Saontoso and Jin Chen battle it our for a spot in the semi-finals.  Jan O Jorgensen of Denmark and Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia also earned spots in the last eight, and will face each other tomorrow afternoon.
 
 
Women's doubles:
 
In a huge surprise Eei Hui Chin and Pei Tty Wong of Malaysia will not advance to the women's doubles quarter-finals as Miyuki Maeda and Satoko Suetsuna of Japan shocked the number one seeds.  Moving on will also be: Yawen Zhang and Tingting Zhao of China,  Jin Ma and Xiaoli Wang of China, Wen Hsing Chen and Yu Chin Chien of Taipei, Jung Eun Ha and Min Jung Kim of Korea, number two ranked Shu Cheng and Yunlei Zhao of China, number three ranked Hyo Jung Lee and Kyung Won Lee of Korea and Jing Du and Yang (f) Yu of China.
                 
Men's doubles:
 
The eight pairings to reach the men's quarter-finals are: Yun Cai and Haifeng Fu of China against Sang Hun Han and Baek Choel Shin of Korea, the unseeded Americans Howard Bach and Tony Gunawan will have a tough task ahead when they take on number two ranked
Kien Keat Koo and Boon Heong Tan of Malaysia, on court number two the crowd will see Indonesia's eighth ranked pairing of Mohd Zakry Adul Latif and Mohd Fairuzizuan Mohd Tazari against Gun Woo Cho and Yeong Seong Hoo of Korea.  The number four pairing of  Korea's Jae Sung Jung and Yong Dae Lee should advance to the semi-finals as they face an unseeded Chinese team of  Zhebdog Guo and Chen Xu.
   
Mixed doubles:
 
India's Jwala Gutta returns a shot as as teammate Diju Valiyaveetil (L) looks on during their mixed doubles match against Poland's Robert Mateusiak and Nadiezda Kostiuczyk during the World Badminton Championship in Hyderabad August 13, 2009.
 
For fans of the mixed doubles competitions there will be some fantastic match-ups of top ranked pairings going head to head to advance to Friday's Saturday's semi-finals.  Number one ranked Yong Dae Lee and Hyo Jung Lee of Korea meet number five ranked Zhongbo Xie and Yawen Zhang of China.  The Danish duo of Thomas Laybourn & Kamilla Rytter Juhl are hoping to knock off number three ranked Bo Zheng and Jin Ma of China.  It what should be one of the best matches of the day, number six meets number four with Joachim Fischer Nielsen and Christinna Pedersen of Denmark meeting Hanbin He and Yang (f) Yu of China.  And in one of the last matches of the day, and a crowd pleaser India's own Diju Valiyaveetil & Jwala Gutta (at left in the third round) meet number two ranked  Nova Widianto & Liliyana Natsir of Indonesia.  
 

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