Arbi eases his way back

Badminton

The Indonesian world No 1, Heryanto Arbi, breezed through two rounds of the Hong Kong Open yesterday after recovering from a knee injury.

Arbi, the top seed and defending champion, took less than 30 minutes to beat Malaysia's Lo Ah Heng 15-6, 15-9 in the first round. He then had a 15-2, 15-3 win over China's Chen Huang, who was in the second round by default because of the absence of Todor Velkov of Bulgaria. Arbi now faces Denmark's Peter Rasmussen.

His fellow Indonesian, Alan Budi Kusuma, the second seed and a gold medallist at the 1992 Olympics, demolished the Australian Murry Hocking 15-3, 15-2 in the first round.

Hermawan Susanto of Indonesia and Poul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen of Denmark, the joint third seeds, also advanced easily. Susanto defeated Taiwan's Liu En-horng 15-7, 15-11, while Hoyer-Larsen crushed Graig Booley, of Australia, 15-4, 15-2. Hoyer-Larsen then went on to beat Chang Jeng-shyuang, of Taiwan, for a third-round place.