Hidayat crashes out of Japan Open

Athens Olympic gold medallist Taufik Hidayat became the biggest casualty on Wednesday when he crashed in an unexpected loss to Japan's Sho Sasaki in the Japan Open badminton tournament.

The Indonesian fourth seed, who reached the final at the world championships last month, failed to take the last two points in the last two games before going down 18-21, 23-21, 21-19 in the men's singles first round.

Eighth seed Yao Jie of the Netherlands earlier in the day became the first seed to fall, losing to Sung Ji-Hyun of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in the women's singles, but other favourites safely went through. "You say it was an unexpected defeat, but you never know whether you can win or lose. There's always a possibility to lose any matches," said Hidayat, the 2005 world champion, now 29.

"It is not that he (Sasaki) played very well, I Just couldn't play well. I couldn't control the shuttle at all."

Sasaki, ranked 34th against Hidayat's fourth in the world, said it was a dream just to play against the Indonesian.

"It's my first time to play against Taufik. I feel like it's a dream to just play against him. I didn't know how fast and heavy his shots would be. I just tried to show my best play to the Japanese people," said Sasaki. AFP