Gopichand cruises into last eight

India's ace shuttler Pulella Gopichand overcame some anxious moments before quelling the challenge of Boonsak Ponsana of Thailand to move into the quarter-finals of the badminton singles in the Asian Games in Busan on Friday.

Gopichand, who appeared a trifle tentative in the early stages of the contest, had to dig deep into his reserves in the first game but got into his groove soon after to register a 17-15, 15-6 victory.

The former All England champion will now clash with second seed Seung Mo Shon of South Korea on Saturday for a place in the semi-finals.

Ponsana started off well by keeping the pressure on Gopichand as the two players went neck and neck till 15-15 in the first game. But the Indian's experience in the curcial stages proved too much for him to match.

Gopichand only had himself to blame for making things difficult as he commited a number of unforced errors in the first game and was distinctly lucky to scrape through it.

But the story was quite different in the second as the Indian lifted his game by a few notches, giving Ponsana no chance at all to stage a comeback.

There was virtually no stopping the Indian as he played a near flawless game in the second game.

The only other Indian in the fray, Abhinn Shyam Gupta had bowed out in the first round yesterday, falling prey to Indonesia's World champion Hendrawan 5-15, 5-15.

In other matches, Xia Xuanze of China defeated Tes Fac Sing of East Timor 15-2, 15-1; Hendrawan of Indonesia defeated Ronald Susilo of Singapore 15-8, 15-5; Choong Hann Wong of Malaysia defeated Wei Ng of Hong Kong 15-8, 3-15, 15-5; Hyun Il Lee of Korea defeated Anuphap Theeraratsakul of Thailand 15-4, 15-4; Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia defeated Keita Masuda of Japan 15-3, 15-2; Muhammad Hafiz Hashim of Malaysia defeated Hong Chen of China 15-7, 11-15, 15-5 and Seung Mo Shon of Korea beat Lok Tin Tam of Hong Kong 15-4, 15-4.