BIRMINGHAM, March 7: Denmark’s Tine Rasmussen continued the decimation of China in the women’s singles by knocking out the No.4 seed Zhu Lin in the second round at the All-England Championships on Thursday.

Following the shock exit of the top two seeds — defending champion Xie Xingfang, the winner for the last three years, and Olympic Champion Zhang Ning — in round one, Rasmussen claimed world No.5 Zhu’s scalp with a comfortable 21-14, 21-15 victory.

It took her through to an all-European quarter-final against last year’s runner-up Pi Hongyan. The French player, who is the No.6 seed, had earlier defeated Canada’s Anna Rice 21-7, 22-20.

Wang Chen, from Hong Kong, claimed her place in the quarter-finals with a 21-17, 14-21, 21-18 win after a close deciding game with Shao-Cheh Cheng, from Chinese Taipei.

Cheng led 16-15 in the decider, but Wang hit back to win four points in a row and avoid joining a list of seeded casualties in the women’s singles.

Yao Lie, who had knocked out Zhang Ning, couldn’t follow-up and disappointingly went out in straight games to Japan’s Yu Hirayama.

Yao had been in great form against the No.2 seed but struggled against the unseeded Hirayama and lost 17-21, 17-21 in just 34 minutes.

There was another huge blow for China in the men’s doubles with top seeds and last year’s runners-up, Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng, going out 22-24, 21-7, 18-21 to Hong Kong’s Albertus Susanto Njoto and Yohan Hadkusumo Wirayama.

Results (prefix number denotes seeding):

Men’s singles:

3-Bao Chunlai (China) bt Chen Yu (China) 21-11, 10-21, 21-18; 5-Kenneth Jonassen (Denmark) bt Sho Sasaki (Japan) 13-21, 22-20, 21-12; 6-Sony Dwi Kuncoro (Indonesia) bt Shoji Sato (Japan) 17-21, 21-9, 21-16; 2-Lee Chong Wei (Malaysia) bt Tommy Sugiarto (Indonesia) 21-18, 21-11; Joachim Persson (Denmark) bt Lu Yi (China) 21-15, 21-18; 1-Lin Dan (China) bt Eric Pang (Netherlands) 21-9, 21-12; 7-Taufik Hidayat (Indonesia) bt Nguyenn Tien Minh (Vietnam) 21-17, 15-21, 21-19; 4-Chen Jin (China) bt Przemyslaw Wacha (Poland) 21-17, 21-9.

Women’s singles:

6-Pi Hongyan (France) bt Anna Rice (Canada) 21-7, 22-20; 5-Wang Chen (Hong Kong) bt Cheng Shao-Chieh (Chinese Taipei) 21-17, 14-21, 21-18; Yu Hirayama (Japan) bt Yao Jie (Netherlands) 21-17, 21-17; Tine Rasmussen (Denmark) bt 4-Zhu Lin (China) 21-14, 21-15; 3-Lu Lan (China) bt Wang Yihan (China) walkover – back injury; Hwang Hye Youn (Korea) bt Pui Yin Yip (Hong Kong) 21-15, 23-21; 8-Wong Mew Choo (Malaysia) bt Jiang Yanjiao (China) 22-20, 23-21; Xu Huaiwen (Germany) bt Jae Youn Jun (Korea) 21-13, 21-14.—AFP