BIRMINGHAM (England), Jan 18: Top seed Lin Dan of China had to battle for 80 minutes to secure his second round spot at the All England championships on Wednesday.
The 2004 title holder looked far from comfortable against determined South Korean Jang Young-soo and was taken to a third set before winning 15-5 9-15 15-9.
Lin seemed to have shrugged off the loss of the second game when he raced 6-0 clear in the decider but Young clawed back to trail 12-9 and but for missing two easy cross-court smashes in the closing stages could well have embarrassed the Chinese.
Results: 1-Lin Dan (China) beat Young Soo Jang (South Korea) 15-5 9-15 15-9; Kasper Odum (Denmark) beat Eric Pang (Netherlands) 9-15 15-4 15-2; 9-Choong Hann Wong (Malaysia) beat Aravind Bhat (India) 15-9 15-9; Aamir Ghaffar (England) beat Yi Zhang (China) 15-5 15-1; 6-Kenneth Jonassen (Denmark) beat Sho Sasaki (Japan) 15-6 15-11; Toby Honey (England) beat Scott Evans (Ireland) 15-3 15-1; 16-Sairul Amar Ayob (Malaysia) beat Jean-Michel Lefort (France) 15-5 15-11; Vidre Wibowo (Sweden) beat Peter Mikkelsen (Denmark) 15-13 15-11; 3-Chong Wei Lee (Malaysia) beat Geoff Bellingham (New Zealand) 15-3 15-2; Bjorn Joppien (Germany) beat Bo Rafn (Denmark) 15-9 15-7; 14-Niels Christian Kaldau (Denmark) beat Poompat Sapkulchananart (Thailand) 17-16 15-12; Yunyong Wu (China) beat Nick Kidd (England) 15-9 15-6; 7-Chen Hong (China) beat Yousuke Nakanishi (Japan) 15-8 15-7; Stanislav Pukhov (Russia) beat Jens-Kristian Leth (Denmark) 15-5 15-11; 13-Shon Seung-mo (South Korea) beat Andrew Dabeka (Canada) 15-10 15-12; Kay Bin Yeoh (Malaysia) beat Vladislav Druzchenko (Ukraine) 15-7 15-7; Carl Baxter (England) beat Nathan Rice (England) 15-9 15-11; 12-Boonsak Ponsana (Thailand) beat Rajiv Ouseph (England) 15-9 15-13; Joachim Fischer Nielsen (Denmark) beat Pedro Yang (Guatemala) 15-4 15-2; Chen Jin (China) beat 8-Muhd Hafiz Hashim (Malaysia) 17-14 15-5; Koichi Saeki (Japan) beat Kasper Ipsen (Denmark) 15-8 15-10; 10-Ng Wei (Hong Kong) beat John Gordon (New Zealand) 15-9 15-3; Wei Chung Pei (Malaysia) beat Martyn Lewis (Wales) 15-6 15-7; 4-Peter Gade Christensen (Denmark) beat Sung Hwan Park (South Korea) 15-4 15-9; Christian Lind Thomsen (Denmark) beat Andrew Smith (England) 15-6 5-15 15-11; 11-Beng Hong Kuan (Malaysia) beat Bob Milroy (Canada) 15-10 15-8; Michael Christensen (Denmark) beat Petr Koukal (Czech Republic) 15-12 15-11; 5-Hyun II Lee (South Korea) beat Chetan Anand (India) 15-0 15-3; Tsuen Seng Lee (Malaysia) beat Sony Dwi Kuncoro (Indonesia) 15-5 15-8; 15-Shoji Sato (Japan) beat Arief Rasidi (France) 15-2 15-3; Joachim Persson (Denmark) beat Dicky Palyama (Netherlands) 12-15 15-4 15-7; 2-Bao Chunlai (China) beat John Moody (New Zealand) 15-9 15-11.—Agencies