• Badminton World Championships

English badminton duo book tie with third seeds

Anthony Clark and Chris Langridge hit more winners than their rivals at Wembley Arena © PA Photos

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England's doubles pairing of Anthony Clark and Chris Langridge coped well with expectation as they advanced from their first round match at the World Badminton Championships on Monday.

Clark and Langridge defeated Japanese duo Yoshiteru Hirobe and Kenta Kazuno 21-15 21-17 at Wembley Arena, in a match lasting 39 minutes. The English pair hit more clean winners to edge a tight contest, and it was a deserved victory on balance of play.

They will now take on third seeds Jae Sung Jung and Yong Dae Lee of Korea in the next round.

England's women's pairing of Langley Alexandra and Lauren Smith will also meet seeds in their next match after they defeated Spanish duo Noelia Jimenez and Paula Rodriguez 21-9 21-15. They will now face Lok Yan Poon and Ying Suet Tse, the 11th seeds from Hong Kong.

Ireland's duo of Sam Magee and Tony Stephenson also advance in the competition after they beat Ukrainian opposition 21-19 21-15.

In the evening's late matches there were mixed fortunes for England, with Mariana Agathangelou and Heather Olver beaten 17-21 21-12 21-15, while Chris Adcock and Andrew Ellis fight another day after a 21-10 21-11 triumph over Brazilian duo Hugo Arthuso and Daniel Paiola.

In the women's singles there was joy for Elizabeth Cann, who fought back from a set down to beat New Zealand's Michelle Chan Ky 16-21 21-13 21-11. She will be joined in the next round by Ireland's Chloe Magee, who also recovered from a poor start to win 13-21 24-22 21-13 against Adrianti Firdasari.

There was double disappointment in two other doubles matches for England, with the pairing of Jenny Wallwork and Gabrielle White well beaten 21-14 21-12 by their Malaysian counterparts. Marcus Ellis and Peter Mills suffered a similar fate, losing 21-11 21-13 to Russian duo Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov.

Elsewhere, Sarah Walker proved no match for France's Hongyan Pi, losing 21-12 21-8, while Carl Baxter never recovered from an awful first set as he lost 21-8 21-19 to Henri Hurskainen.

There was disappointment for Scotland too, with Martin Campbell and Angus Gilmour losing their doubles match 21-13 21-17 to their Australian counterparts, while Susan Egelstaff dipped out of the singles 22-20 21-16 against Canada's Li Michelle.

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