Top seeds crash out of National Junior Circuit
Posted on February 12, 2012, Sunday
IMPRESSIVE PLAY: Boys U14 singles top seed Wilson Lau of Sarawak lifts the shuttlecock at the net during the quarter-final match against Mohd Qusairie Adiman of Sabah. Lau won 21-14, 21-16. — Photo by Davidson Kho
KUCHING: Three top seeded players crashed out of the singles competition on the second day of the 100Plus National Junior Circuit (Sabah-Sarawak Zone qualifying) at Sarawak Badminton Association Hall at Jalan Lapangan Terbang yesterday.
They were Sabah’s Neville Baptist Luaran, Sarawak’s Liew Yew Hou and Michelle Kong.
Michelle, seeded number one in the Girls U18 singles suffered an upset defeat to Sabah’s Ester Leevinia Samin in the quarter-finals. She won the first set 21-15 but faltered in the next two sets, losing 11-21, 17-21 in the match that lasted for 40 minutes.
However, second seed Vinnie Liong kept the Sarawak flag flying with an easy win over her Sabahan opponent Rabecca Olivia Dominic 21-15, 21-8.
Vinnie now meets Liew Sui Xin of Sabah in the semi-finals while Ester will play against teammate Cheong Sing Yueh in the other semi-final after the latter defeated Sarawak’s Hafizah Zulkifli 21-10, 21-11.
In the Girls U16 singles competition, it will be an all Sabahan semi-finals affair, with top seed Teh Xiao Xuan leading the way.
Teh lost the opening set 15-21 to Sarawak’s Viviene Kua but came back strongly to win the second and rubber sets 21-16, 21-10 to set up a last four match against Joanne Chai who beat Grace Lee 21-2, 21-9.
The other two semi-finalists are Donnetta Moisoi who defeated Nur Adilah Syafiqah Adiman 21-10, 21-12 and second seed Lydia Habirin who faced little problem in seeing off Grace Voon 21-13, 21-8.
The second upset of the day saw second seed Liew Yew Hou of Sarawak falling 21-14, 17-21 and 18-21 to unseeded Wan Mohd Hidayat Wan Hassan in the Boys U14 singles quarter-finals.
Earlier, Sarawak’s Kenny Liew claimed the scalp of top seed Neville Baptist Luaran of Sabah in the Boys U12 singles contest.
Liew beat Neville 21-17, 17-21 and 21-14 to move into the semi-finals where he will face Sabah’s Ling Dai Hau after the latter disposed of teammate Syafiq Serikin 21-12, 21-10.
Sarawak Sukma XV shuttler Jong Wee Fook booked his semi-final ticket by beating teammate James Liaw 21-16, 21-11 in the last eight of the Boys U18 singles.
His next opponent is Lawrie Herman who continued his winning streak by beating teammate Scott Tsang 21-16, 10-21, 21-16.
The other semi-final will see second seed Anthony Samin Jr of Sabah taking on his teammate Mohd Rahmat Amirul.
As at press time (5pm) yesterday, quarterfinals and semi-finals matches for all categories are still being played.
The finals for all categories will be played today, starting at 8:30am.
The competition include eight categories namely the U18, U16, U14 and U12 each for boys and girls and the champions of U18, U16 and U14 will qualify for the grand finals of the national level competition.
