Top Seed Ye crashed in All England Badminton

Chinese Defending champion and top seed Ye Zhaoying became the biggest casualty so far at the All England Badminton Championships when she lost to Mia Audina Tjiptawan of the Netherlands at Birmingham Thursday.

The Chinese player, who had won here in the past three consecutive years, was beaten in straight sets at 9-11 and 9-11.

Chinese team head coach Li Yongbo branded Ye's defeat as normal, but he did not elaborate.

At the last world championships in Copenhagen, Ye was ousted by Kelly Morgan of Wales in the first round.

After being left behind in the first set at 0-7, Ye once tried to gear up to catch up, tracking the score at 5-7 and 9-10 before losing the set at 11-9.

The start of the second set was almost a duplicate of the first one. Only when Ye was at the score of 1-6, could she pick up her mind to regain some strength.

After leveling the score at 9-all, two positive errors from her gave the match to the Dutch rival.

"I have been trying to be stable, but she had the total control of the court," said Ye.

Meanwhile, men's top seed and defending champion Peter Gade Christensen of Denmark advanced into the quater-finals by defeating Budi Santoso of Indonesia 15-3, 15-9.

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