Team Philippines bows to badminton world power

MANILA, Philippines — Indonesia lived up to its status as a badminton world power, hammering out a 3-0 victory over host Philippines to advance to the men’s semifinals of the 2020 Badminton Asia Manila Team Championships at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum last night.

Anthony Sinisuka Ginting, ranked fifth in the Badminton World Federation men’s singles rankings, clobbered Ros Lenard Pedrosa, 21-10, 21-16, and Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setaiwan, ranked second in men’s doubles, blasted Peter Gabriel Magnaye and Alvin Morada, 21-16, 21-12, to go 2-0 up.

World No. 7 Jonatan Christie then put on the finishing touch on a 21-11, 21-14 bashing of Lanz Ralf Zafra.

The Indonesians thus forged a semis duel with the winner of the Thailand-India face-off which was being played at press time.

In the women’s division earlier, world no. 1 Akane Yamaguchi and the rest of the Japanese team dominated Indonesia, 3-0, to book their place in the semifinals.

Yamaguchi needed just 34 minutes to stamp her class on Gregoria Tunjung, 21-9, 21-15, to start the day for the top-seeded squad in this tournament backed by Smart Communications, Inc., MVP Sports Foundation, Leisure and Resorts World Corp., Cignal and TV5.