Ratchanok Intanon came unstuck against her bogey player as she fell to Chen Yufei 21-15, 9-21, 11-21 in the women's singles quarter-finals of the US$700,000 Fuzhou China Open yesterday.
Ratchanok, seeded sixth this week, lost to Chen at the same stage of the French Open a couple of weeks ago, also after winning the first game. She was also beaten by Chen in the team event at the Asian Games in Indonesia.
Her only win against the Chinese this year came at the Uber Cup in May.
The Thai interest in the BWF World Tour Super 750 event ended as mixed doubles pair Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai also lost yesterday.
In the mixed doubles quarter-finals, Dechapol and Sapsiree pushed top seeds Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong to three games but the Chinese world No.1 pair proved too strong in the end as they won 21-10, 19-21, 21-11 at Fuzhou's Haixia Olympic Sports Center.
Fourth seed Chen goes on to meet Carolina Marin in today's semis after the Spanish fifth seed eased past Zhang Beiwen of the US 21-11, 21-13.
In the top half of the draw, eighth seed He Bingjiao of China beat third seed Pusarla V Sindhu of India 21-17, 17-21, 21-15 to set up a last-four clash with seventh seed Nozomi Okuhara, who beat fellow Japanese Sayaka Takahashi 21-4, 21-10.
In the men's singles quarter-finals, top seed and world No.1 Kento Momota of Japan progressed with a 21-17, 21-14 win over seventh seed Son Wan-Ho of South Korea.
He will play either sixth seed Chen Long of China or Anders Antonsen of Denmark.
China's No.1 Shi Yuqi, the second seed, battled back to defeat eighth seed Anthony Sinisuka Ginting of Indonesia 16-21, 21-14, 21-14. He will play Chou Tien-chen in the semis after the Taiwanese fourth seed downed Indian fifth seed Srikanth Kidambi 21-14, 21-14.
