Quarter Finals of the Yonex Australia Open 2011

Boonsak Ponsana and Tien Minh Nguyen were both knocked out in the quarter finals of the Yonex Australia Open 2011. What other surprises are we in for? Some of the young players have already exhibited their extraordinary talents by upsetting the big guns.

In terms of crowd support, there was an amazingly huge turnout in the quarter finals, many fans were able to make it after work to witness these exciting moments. The event venue was capable of hosting 1500 audience. Roughly 70-80% of the seats were filled up during the quarter finals.

Among the big matches for the quarter finals were:

• Current World no.6 Boonsak Ponsana (THA) vs Tommy Sugiarto (INA), son of badminton legend Icuk Sugiarto!
• Current Badminton World Champion Wang Lin (CHN) vs Adrianti Firdasari (INA)
• Current World no.7 and defending champion Nguyen Tien Minh (VIE) vs Sho Sasaki (JPN)

Boonsak vs Tommy

Tommy, 23, who was more agile and fit, forced the world no.7 Boonsak into a rubber game. Boonsak who is already near his retiring age, could hardly keep up with the fitness level of the young Indonesian.

As expected, Tommy employed an aggressive play against Boonsak and kept the pressure on. Boonsak went down to his knees a couple of times to defend Tommy’s strong smashes.

In the rubber game, there were a couple of controversial calls by the line judges against Boonsak, which caused a little uproar in the crowd. Unfortunately, Boonsak failed to make it for the semi finals. The score was 21-19, 19-21, 21-9.

Wang Lin vs Adrianti

For Wang Lin, she had an easy start but half way through the first game, Adrianti started to pick up the pace and put up a good fight. The situation started to get tough at this point for Wang Lin, but eventually showed the qualities of a top player as she managed to pull off a win at 21-18.

The second game was competitive at the start, but Adrianti showed signs of tiredness after the second game interval, she failed to receive a couple of difficult shots from Wang.

Eventually the gap became wider with Wang leading 16-11 at one point. This match was one of the biggest matches in the quarter finals, evidently by hearing the cheers from the crowd for Wang Lin.

As expected, Wang Lin made it to the semi finals, ending the game at 21-18, 21-18.

Tien Minh vs Sho Sasaki

Defending champion Tien Minh had a fierce competition against Sho Sasaki. Sho performed extraordinarily in this match. Many were expecting Tien Minh to advance to the finals, but the match results in the quarter finals disappointed the crowd.

Tien, who wants to win the Australian Open title again this year, made both players enter a rubber game. Sho used an intelligent strategy against Tien. As Tien’s strength lies on his agility and smashes, Sho was well able to prevent Tien from exploiting his strength in this game. Tien was eliminated in the quarter finals with Sho proceeding to the semi finals at 21-19, 7-21, 21-18.

Semi Finals

As for the semi finals of the Yonex Australia Open 2011, Porntip from Thailand will be playing against Wang Lin. Porntip is a talented badminton player who made her way to the semi finals by defeating the no.4 seed for WS, Tai Tzu Ying from Chinese Taipei.

Can Wang Lin make it to the finals by defeating Porntip?

Besides that, former world no.2 Wong Choong Hann from Malaysia will be playing with Tommy Sugiarto. Can Tommy steal another victory with his age advantage?

Witness another China v Thailand match in WS. The no.1 seed Liu Xin will play against Inthanon Ratchonok (no.7 seed). Could either of these two Thai women players win the Australia open championships for Thailand this year?

Many badminton fans will be at the stadium for the semi finals and FINALS of the Yonex Australia Open 2011. Join us and watch the TOP badminton players in the world perform their skills.

Tickets are available at the entrance.

Update: It was an exciting event, you can read the highlights for the Yonex Australia Open 2011 Finals here.