China's three top seeds in women's singles faced stern resist from their opponents in the Olympic badminton tournament Saturday in Athens, shocking their compatriots on the tribune into cold sweat.

World champion Zhang Ning failed to control her high clear shots at the beginning, citing the unfavorable wind, and lost the first set 4-11 easily to Marina Andrievskaya of Sweden.

"I hesitated to hit high clear shots down the wind, giving the tall Swedish good chances to strike," said Zhang, No.2 seed in the 28th Olympiad.

However, she regained her master of shuttles in the second set, crushing Marina, ranked No.12, 11-3 with her powerful shots.

In the third set, Zhang said she felt quite confident when she was 4-7 behind, winning a streak of 7 points and the whole match.

No.3 seed Zhou Mi was drawn into a hard rally against Xu Huaiwen from German, ranked No.12, and lost the first set 9-11.

While in the next two sets, the smile sweet struck excellent placements, weighing down the former Chinese player by 11-5 and 11-2.

"I felt totally lost in the first set when the tactics of pressing down failed to work on the court, and couldn't find a right way out," said Zhou, adding that set 2 and set 3 were tuned into her rhythm perfectly.

Earlier, her compatriot Gong Ruina, No.1 seed also met a little trouble when facing Singapore's youngster Li Li in the first round.

"It was rather difficult for me in the first set, I kept adjusting my tactics and tried to find way out," said Gong, the 2001 world champion, who seemed to wake up after 7-9 behind Li Li, ranked 28th on August 5, and then won a streak of four points to stop Li from stealing the first set with 11-9.

The resist in the second set was much easier for Gong to cope with, who won an overwhelming 11-4 set, which is a good start for the championship hopeful.

Gong admitted that the first match is always hard to play, however, "I am in better form than in the Uber Cup last May".

Chinese national badminton team pocketed four golds in Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, including the women's singles, which is also considered as the best bet for China in Athens.

Source: Xinhua