Bao Chunlai further boosted China's chances of claiming the men's singles at the World Championships by adding the scalp of Malaysian Roslin Hashim to that of third seed Taufik Hidayat.
The 20-year-old from Hunan province eased into the semi-finals beating Roslin 15-7, 15-10. 'At 10-10 I grasped the opportunity to keep smashing and I picked up the key points. My coach [Zhong Bo] said the strength of those smashes caught Roslin by surprise.'
A surprisingly upbeat Roslin explained that the key factor was that while Bao had comfortably beaten Hidayat 15-10, 15-8 in the third round, he had had a stamina-sapping marathon with South Korea's Lee Hyun-il.
'We have to keep smiling win or lose, although I'm very disappointed. It wasn't my best match because my body hadn't recovered from playing for one hour and 40 minutes the day before. If I had been in good shape, I would have made it tougher.'
In the women's singles, Hong Kong's number one seed Wang Chen was poised to face up to her former teammates. Wang was to face Zhou Mi late last night (HK time) in the quarter-finals, with the winners facing either Gong Ruina or Xie Xingfang in the last four.
In the men's doubles, Sang Yang and Zheng Bo profited from early injuries to South Korea's two top pairings and secured an unexpected medal. They reached the last four with an heroic comeback, defeating Chan Chong Ming and Chew Choon Eng of Malaysia 7-15, 15-3, 15-11.