Difficult hurdles ahead

Press, 2 June 1989, Page 27

Difficult hurdles ahead

PA Wellington New Zealand’s interest in the world badminton championships in Jakarta yesterday was confined to the doubles and mixed doubles events.

The fine run into the third round by its entries in the men’s and women’s singles was brought to an end with Phil Horne and Dean Galt bowing out to top-ranked Indonesian and Chinese opponents respectively while Toni

Whittaker lost 11-1, 11-2, to her Danish opponent, Pernille Nedegaard. Horne went down 3 and 0 to the joint third seed, Icuk Sugiarto, while Galt lost 5 and 4 to Xiong Gubao, also seeded third. The remaining New Zealand pairs in the doubles face difficult third round hurdles, Horne and Katrin Blay were to play a Chinese pair while Robson and Whittaker were to play a South Korean pair. In the women’s doubles.

Blair and Julie Still meet a Chinese pair. However, the team manager, Chris Bullen, said from Jakarta yesterday that the men's doubles pair of Horne and Robson were in with a chance of advancing a step further when they meet the Scottish pair of Dan Travers and Stephen Middlemiss. “It’ll be tough but there’s a chance that Phil and Graeme can chalk a win if they put things together.”