Chinese march on at All England Championships
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-01-19 10:54

BIRMINGHAM, England, Jan 18 (Reuters) - China's big guns, headed by top seed Lin Dan, marched into the third round of the men's singles at the All England Championships on Wednesday.

China's Chen Hong returns a shot to Yousuke Nakanishi of Japan in their men's singles match during the first round of the All England badminton championships in Birmingham, England January 18, 2006. [Reuters]

Lin was joined by holder Chen Hong and world junior champion Chen Jin.

Denmark's Peter Gade, winner in 1999, looked to be Europe's best hope in the face of the customary onslaught from China who won four of the five events here last year.

Gade had little trouble in an arena he knows well, particularly when he defeated Malaysia's Pei Wee Chung 15-1 15-4 in the second round.

Lin, men's singles champion two years ago, dropped a game in each of his first and second-round matches, both played on a marathon opening day stretching over 14 hours and featuring 96 contests.

But he recovered well, especially in his second-round encounter with stubborn Dane Kasper Oedum, finally coming out on top 5-15 15-6 15-4.

New kid on the block Chen Jin produced a mature second-round performance to brush aside Denmark's Joachim Fischer Nielsen 15-5 15-8. He had earlier disposed of 2003 champion Hafiz Hashim of Malaysia.

Chen Hong, also All England champion in 2002, had too much guile and power for Russian Stanislav Pukhov, scoring an easy 15-7 15-4 second-round success.

The only cloud on the Chinese horizon was the fate of second seed Bao Chunlai who had to pull out with an ankle injury in the second game of his second-round match with Joachim Persson. The Dane was leading 17-15 10-5.

Another lengthy day is in prospect on Thursday with players in all five events bidding for quarter-final places.