Badminton: Foreign players kill Kiwi hopes

Day two of the New Zealand Open in Auckland turned out to be a graveyard for seeds in singles, especially Kiwi players.

Women's top seed Miyo Akao of Japan was beaten by Indonesian Adriyanti Firdasari in the second round of singles in straight games. It was Akao's first match of the tournament after receiving a bye in the first round.

Firdasari won the match 11-7, 11-2 to move into the quarter-finals.

Another Indonesian put paid to New Zealand No 1 Rachel Hindley, the third seed. Ranked at 92 in the world, Maria Kristin Yulanti beat 32nd-ranked Hindley 11-6, 11-6.

Another upset was the defeat of Kiwi men's No 1 and world No 37 John Moody who lost to Hong Kong's Wai Hong Wong in three dramatic games 12-15, 15-6, 15-13.

Moody, the tournament fourth seed managed to equal the scores at 11-11 with some gutsy play in a number of rallies which were over 30 shots but couldn't hold off the power of his opponent. The match took one hour 26 minutes with the deceptive smashing of Wong winning the Hong Kong player vital points.

Kiwi No 2 and tournament seventh seed Geoff Bellingham also lost, going down to Yan Kit Chan of Hong Kong 15-5, 15-9.

The upset wins by the young Indonesian and Hong Kong players proved just how much depth there is in their nations. Wong is only just out of the junior ranks where he was the best in Hong Kong and looks to have a promising future. He plays fifth seed Conrad Hueckstaedt of Germany in the quarter-finals.

Rebecca Bellingham kept up her good form from the world champs with a hard-fought 11-8, 11-7 win over Australian Renuga Veeran.

As expected the world championship bronze medal duo of Dan Shirley and Sara Runesten-Petersen wrapped up their first mixed match beating Donna Cranston (Waikato) and Chris Lee (Wellington) 15-1, 15-0 in just 17 minutes.

Quarter-final matches in all draws start at 4pm today.