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OS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Top seed Taufik Hidayat crashed out of the quarterfinals of the US$120,000 Yonex OCBC US Open Grand Prix Gold badminton championship in California, on Thursday.

After sidelining Tien Chen Chou of Taiwan and Chetan Anand of India in the earlier rounds, the 2004 Olympic champion lost 16-21, 15-21 to sixth seed German shuttler Marc Zwiebler. Taufik was the only Indonesian in the draw.

In Friday’s semifinals, Zwiebler will face Vietnam’s Nguyen Tien Minh, who earlier had ousted one of China’s top shuttlers, Bao Chun Lai.

Despite having sent dozens of its second tier and younger troops to the Open, badminton powerhouse China saw none of its shuttlers reach the semifinals.

Japanese shuttlers dominated the tournament with the most players advancing to the semifinals, including women’s singles players Sayaka Sato and Eriko Hirose, men’s singles player Sho Sasaki, and five pairs in the mixed, women’s and men’s doubles. The other semifinalists consisted of South Korean, Taiwanese, Malaysian and Thai players.