Badminton: Korean top seed upset by China men's No13

Huang Yuxiang (China) vs top seed Son Wan Ho (Korea) at the SKYCITY NZ Badminton Open, 25th March 2016. Photo / Luke Lee

Chinese men's No13 Huang Yuxiang upset No1 seed Son Wan Ho, of Korea, in three thrilling games at the New Zealand Badminton Open in Auckland yesterday.

Huang stunned the top seed 21-19, 21-19, 21-19.

Elsewhere, Tien Nguyen (Vietnam) beat Qiao Bin (China) 17-21, 21-17, 21-14; Riichi Takeshita (Japan) defeated Lee Dong Keun (Korea) 21-16, 17-21, 21-8 and Teck Zhi Soo beat Shi Yuqi (China) 11-21, 22-20, 21-14.

The day got off to the best possible start, with a rollicking mixed doubles match between Ko Sung Hyun and Kim Ha Na (Korea) and Yuta Watanabe and Airsa Higashino (Japan), a David v Goliath battle.

The Koreans though stayed calm during the vital final moments to eke out a win 25-23 in the third.

"We just stayed calm and tried to be mentally strong," said Ko. "We are very experienced and knew to just play each point, one at a time. We were making too many mistakes on our serve early in the match, but improved and managed to win in the end. For the next game we must improve our mental game, we must be stronger and we must take more confidence into the match."

Their opponents will be Peng Chan and Liu Goh (Malaysia). The third seeds dispatched Faisal and Aulia (Indonesia) 21-12, 21-11.

China showed they have contenders in the mixed though, with Zheng Siwei and Li Yinhui, two 19 year olds who continue to upset their higher ranked and older opponents, this time it was Yugo Kobayashi and Yuki Fukushima (Japan) 21-15, 22-20 in the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles.

The Chinese pair will face the Korean second seeds Shin Baek Cheol and Chae Yoo Jung today after they beat an Indian pair.