Australian Open champ out in NZ first round

Australian Badminton Open men’s singles champion Tian Houwei went down in his very first match in Auckland at the 2012 Skycity New Zealand Grand Prix.  Tian lost in two games to India’s Anand Pawar, who was also accompanied into men’s singles second round by all five other Indian shuttlers.

Tian’s team-mate Qiao Bin also found himself short on luck in New Zealand as he became the first seeded player to lose this week.  He fell to Hwang Jong Soo, who is now the second oldest player on the Korean National Badminton Team, to which he has recently returned avec a short hiatus.  Hwang, too, was part of an overall winning effort for his squad as all three other Koreans also advanced in men’s singles.

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