Yio Chu Kang Sports Hall, Monday, May 26, 2008 – As a warm-up event for the Singapore Super Series next month (10-15 June), Singapore’s Yao Lei won both her doubles matches at the Singapore Asian Satellite finals last weekend to give the home team its only two golds this year.

Singapore’s women’s doubles rising talent Yao Lei. (Photo courtesy of Badmintonphoto)

The day started on a high note for Singapore and especially for Yao Lei, who beat her doubles partner Shinta Mulia Sari in an all-Singapore mixed doubles final. Shortly thereafter, Sari was clearly glad to have Yao on her side against the stiff competition from Indonesians Devi Tika Permatasari and Nadya Melati. Sari and Yao came back from one game down to win the hour-long women's doubles final 14-21, 21-14, 21-13.

Unlike his mixed partner Sari, Chayut Triyachart was unable to bounce back from his runner-up finish to take a title of his own as he and Danny Bawa Chrisnanta lost a hard-fought match in the men's doubles final to Indonesia's only winners of the day, Fernando Kurniawan and Lingga Lie, who won 21-12, 17-21, 21-19.

The men's doubles victory, in the last match of the day, was actually third time lucky for Indonesia. Involved in the day's three longest matches, Indonesia had already come up short in the women's singles as well, where an in-form Porntip Buranaprasertsuk of Thailand held on to beat Yuan Kartika Putri 21-18, 16-21, 21-16 in 55 minutes.

This victory would register Porntip’s second straight victory after her Smiling Fish International Series earlier this month, bringing her title count to three in just the last six months. Her winning ways started with her Malaysia International Challenge title last November, attracted some attention last month as well when she took Malaysian star Wong Mew Choo to three games.

In the men's singles, Thailand's Pakkawat Vilailak was once again relegated to second place, as he had been at home earlier this month. This time, however, his teammate Tanongsak's place on the podium was to be taken by Korean veteran Ahn Hyun Suk, the oldest player on court on Saturday at a ripe old 23.

Ahn was a university teammate of Olympic-bound Park Sung Hwan but never really made much of a ripple on the international scene, making the semi-finals of only 4 tournaments in his career, including the Asian Junior Championships. He was too much for Vilailak on Saturday, though, and took the final 21-19, 21-15. (Source: Badzine.info)