Honeymoon over as Lee Chong Wei focuses on Hong Kong Badminton Open
Recently married world number one gets back to serious business in US$250,000 tournament
World number one Lee Chong Wei has cut short his honeymoon to play in this week's Yonex Sunrise Hong Kong Open.
The Malaysian, who married former teammate Wong Mew Choo 10 days ago, admitted yesterday he was envious of Olympic champion Lin Dan, who is skipping this week's US$250,000 tournament at the Coliseum in Hung Hom to be with his new bride, former China player Xie Xingfang. The Chinese couple were married last month.
"The Chinese have had a lot of good players such as Chen Long and Chen Jin, but this is not the case in Malaysia," said Lee. "That's why I can't enjoy a long honeymoon. Anyway, the Hong Kong Open is one of my favourite tournaments and I am happy to be here."
Lee begins his campaign today when he takes on Boonsak Ponsana of Thailand in the first round.
After the Hong Kong event, Lee will compete at the Macau Open next week before travelling to Shenzhen for next month's season finale, the Super Series finals.
Hong Kong's Hu Yun, who has reached one final and two semi-finals this year, will also be at the Super Series finals for the first time, while women's doubles pair Tse Ying-suet and Poon Lok-yan will need a good result this week to secure their berth in Shenzhen.
In yesterday's Hong Kong Open qualifiers, youngster Ng Ka-long won both his singles matches to reach the main draw of a Super Series for the first time, along with Chan Yan-kit, who had to start in the qualifiers after dropping out of the world's top 50.
The 18-year-old Ng, who clinched the doubles title at the world junior championships with Lee Chun-hei in Japan a fortnight ago, has decided to focus only on singles from now on. "I think singles is the way to go for me. I want to give myself two years to see how far I can go," said Ng, who meets eighth seed Nguyen Tien Minh of Vietnam today.
In the women's singles this week, China are likely to dominate with many of the mainland's top players here, including Olympic champion Li Xuerui and world number one Wang Yihan.
