Badminton: Big two win through for match of the day

The keenly awaited match between top seed and defending champion Sairul Amar Ayob of Malaysia and former top-10 player Ronald Susilo of Singapore, will be the highlight of the third round of the New Zealand Badminton Open today.

Both players cruised through their second round games in less than half an hour.

Susilo, who is recovering from an achilles tendon injury, looked relaxed beating Ching Hung Cheng of Chinese Taipei 21-16, 21-10.

Ayob, 26, had a comfortable win in 16 minutes over New Zealand's Henry Tam.

New Zealand No 1 and tournament fifth seed John Moody beat fellow Kiwi James Moffat, and will meet Australian Jeff Tho in the third round.

Tho, Australia's best teenager, overcame local teenager Alan Chan in a three-game epic.

Also winning through to the third round were second seed Andrew Smith of England, third seed Shoji Sato of Japan and fourth seed Canadian Bobby Milroy.

In the women's singles, North Harbour school pupil Melissa Leviana continued her good form in the tournament beating Clare Chapple in two sets.

She will face eighth seed Trupti Murgunde of India in the third round.

Another New Zealand competitor through to the women's third round is Auckland teenager Vina, who is originally from Indonesia. She fought out a tough match against Shinta Mulia Sari from Singapore, and will now meet former Commonwealth Games gold medallist Li Li.

Rachel Hindley, the women's top seed, had to fight hard to win her first match. She beat Juan Gu of Singapore 21-1, 24-22 and now plays Japan's Yoshimi Hataya.

Second-seeded Malaysian Sutheaswari Mudukasan is also through to the next round.

Geoff Bellingham won his singles match over a Spanish opponent, and his wife Rebecca and sister in-law Nicole Gordon won their doubles match against a Singapore pair in straight games. They play the third seeds from Malaysia in the next round.