World number one Lin Dan and Olympic champion Zhang Ning cruised into the semifinals of men's and women's singles at the Hong Kong Open Badminton Championships 2005 Friday afternoon.

The game between Lin Dan and 28-year-old veteran Gade Peter from Denmark, which lasted around two and half hour, was widely regarded as the early men's singles final.

In the first set, Lin got a streak of three points when trailing 14-16 and finally took the set 17-16. In the second set, Gade pulled off an amazing performance and won 15-13.

In the decisive third set, Lin won with impressive fightback after lagging behind and ousted the only one European player who advanced to the last eight in the men's singles 15-12.

In the women's singles, Athens Olympic champion Zhang Ning defeated Xu Huaiwen, former Chinese national squad member now representing Germany, 2-0.

Pi Hongyan, another former Chinese national squad member now representing France, advanced to the top four by upsetting world number seven Hallam Tracey from England. Zhang will meet Pi in the semifinals Saturday.

In the women's doubles, world number one Yang Wei/Zhang Jiewen upset another pair of Chinese players Wei Yili/Zhao Tingting 2-0.

In the mixed doubles, Athens Olympic champion Zhang Jun/Gao Ling defeated their rivals from Thailand with an easy 2-0 victory. They will meet world number five Robertson Nathan/Emms Gail, who crushed their Indonesian opponents 2-0 in the semifinals Saturday.

Source: Xinhua