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Olympics: China's top doubles shuttlers dumped from Olympics

AFP - Tuesday, August 12

BEIJING, Aug 11, 2008 (AFP) - Japan's Miyuki Maeda and Satoko Suetsuna dumped China's Olympic champions from the women's badminton doubles Monday, storming into the semi-finals in the biggest win of their careers.

The Japanese duo fought a three-game thriller against world champions Yang Wei and Zhang Jiewen who had been favourites to win a second gold to match their title win in Athens.

The Japanese girls, unseeded here and ranked eight in the world, dropped to their knees after the match, hugging and crying before embracing their coaches.

"This was the biggest win of our lives," Suetsuna said.

The loss was a setback for China who are gunning for a clean sweep of the badminton golds, and have won the women's doubles at the last three Olympics.

"It's okay, we have thought this before (losing). We tried our best and have no regrets," Zhang said.

China however still have a strong chance of taking the title after their other two top seeds marched into the semi-finals.

Backed by a capacity crowd singing patriotic songs and screaming "Kill," second seeds Du Jing and Yu Yang thrashed Japan's top pair Kumiko Ogura and Reiko Shiota 21-8, 21-5.

The Chinese duo setup a showdown with compatiots Wei Yili and Zhang Yawen, seeded three, who downed Taiwan's Cheng Wen Hsing and Chien Yu Chin 21-14, 21-18.

In the earlier upset, China's Yang and Zhang started strongly, taking the first game 21-8, before the Japanese produced a gritty comeback to edge out the Chinese 23-21 in the second.

Sensing an upset was on the cards, the Japanese grew in confidence, powering over the wilting top seeds for a 21-14 victory that silenced the Chinese crowd.

"I'm very happy, they are the Olympic champions so even when we had 20 points in the third game, we could not take anything for granted. It wasn't until we got that final point that we could celebrate," Suetsuna said.

"Now we have a day off and we just hope to keep the momentum going."

The Japanese duo face South Korea's fourth seeds Lee Hyojung and Lee Kyungwon after they defeated Singapore's Jiang Yanmei and Li Yujia 21-15, 21-12.

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