Skip to main content

Nicol celebrates birthday with victory

 
Nicol David scored a 11-6, 11-5, 11-5 win over national teammate Delia Arnold in the Hong Kong Open yesterday.

Nicol David celebrated turning 31 yesterday with a straight-forward win over national teammate Delia Arnold in a positive start to her Hong Kong Open title defence.

Looking to put last week’s Malaysian Open semi-final loss behind her, Nicol won the first round match 11-6, 11-5, 11-5 with national No 3 Delia still to take a game off the seven-time world champion.

This was only the pair’s second meeting on the WSA Tour after the 2011 World Open but fifth in all competitions, with the last meeting prior to yesterday coming at the 2013 National Championships.

Nicol, who has won the Hong Kong Open for eight years running, next plays England’s Emma Beddoes, a 12-10, 11-5, 11-6 winner over South African Siyoli Waters, tomorrow.

In the men’s first round, top seed Gregory Gaultier of France repeated his 2011 Malaysian Open success over national No 2 Nafiizwan Adnan with an 11-4, 11-4, 13-11 win.

Delia reached the main draw on Monday with an 11-5, 11-6, 11-8 win over Hong Kong’s Elise Ng while Nafiizwan won 11-7, 10-12, 11-3, 14-12 over Australian Matthew Karwalski.

Ivan Yuen lost in the men’s first qualifying round 11-6, 11-6, 13-11 against Rex Hedrick of Australia while Zulhijjah Azan was beaten 12-10, 11-6, 6-11, 11-9 by Milou Van Der Heijden of the Netherlands in the women’s qualifying finals.
 
Malaysian Open runner-up Tarek Momen produced the biggest shock of the day when the Egyptian ousted third seed James Willstrop of England 11-9, 12-10, 11-8.

National women’s No 2 Low Wee Wern opens her campaign against Hong Kong's Tong Tsz Wing today.



 By Devinder Singh - NST

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ex-coach's jail sentence cut to a year

PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal yesterday sentenced former athletics coach C. Ramanathan to 12 months' jail for molesting two junior athletes 19 years ago. A three-man bench led by Datuk Mohd Hishamudin Mohd Yunus unanimously dismissed Ramanathan's appeal against conviction, but varied the jail sentence of four years to a year, which was to run concurrently. Following yesterday's ruling, Ramanathan, 75, a former teacher, walked out a free man as he had served 10 months in Kajang Prison. Convicts get one-third remission for good behaviour while in prison. However, he will lose his pension. Hishamudin, who sat with Datuk Abdul Wahab Patail and Datuk Linton Albert, said the court found no merit to overturn the conviction. "However, in reducing the sentence, we considered Ramanathan's age and the long years the appeal has taken." Deputy public prosecutor Awang Armadajaya Awang Mahmud submitted that then High Court judge Tan Sri Abdull Hamid E...
2 comments
Read more

Badminton: Fans rooting for all-Malaysian semis

Reports: RAJES PAUL KUALA LUMPUR: The home fans will be rooting for an all-Malaysian men’s singles semi-final between Lee Chong Wei and Liew Daren. But Chong Wei is more fancied to advance than Daren in quarter-final matches against Indonesian Simon Santoso and Dane Peter Gade-Christensen respectively at the Putra Stadium in Bukit Jalil today. Yesterday, Chong Wei defeated Vietnamese Nguyen Tien Minh 21-9, 18-21, 21-7 in a second-round match that saw the world number one struggling to adapt to the draught in the stadium in the second game. And Daren continued a fairy tale run in his home Open, blowing away a toothless Hsueh Hsuan-yi of Taiwan 21-14, 21-12. Although Choong Wei had to slog for the win over Tien Minh, the top seed and defending champion felt that he was playing better by the day. “I got off to a good start but found it hard to cope with the draught. I tried to catch up after losing my momentum but that did not happen and I decided to conserve energy for ...
11 comments
Read more

Rajagobal Let Off The Hook

PETALING JAYA, April 24 (Bernama) -- National head coach Datuk K. Rajagobal was let off the hook by the Football Association of Malaysia's (FAM) Disciplinary Committee after finding no evidence that he had violated FAM's Article 88, as claimed. FAM Disciplinary Committee chairman Datuk Taufik Abdul Razak said the committee had decided not to charge Rajagobal after carefully analysing the video of the post-match press conference by the 56-year-old coach. "After listening to the recording of the post-match press conference, we decided to drop the charge against Rajagopal as he did not make such a statement. "Maybe his (Rajagobal) assessment and comments of the match was misconstrued by the media. There was no mention of the FAM policy throughout his comments," said Taufik after emerging from a three-hour Disciplinary Committee meeting at Wisma FAM in Kelana Jaya, here, Wednesday. Rajagobal who does not mince his words when asked to com...
4 comments
Read more