HONG KONG─The felling of tall poppies began in Round 1 of the Cathay Pacific Sun Hung Kai Financial Hong Kong Open 2016 on Tuesday Aug 23 with local youngsters Yip Tsz-Fung and Ho Tze-Lok beating seeded Columbian Miguel Angel Rodriguez and former England No 1 Jenny Duncalf respectively.
By the time the quarter finals were played on Thursday, only one top ten seed remained in the Men’s draw, Karim Abdel Gawad - and on the Women’s side, all local interest was over with both Annie Au and Ho falling to seeded players (world No 1 Nour El Sherbini and 6th seed Camille Serme respectively) in Round 2.
Max Lee progressed beating England qualifier Joe Lee in Round 1 and then took out 2 Egyptian’s in a row (Ali Farag and Fares Dessouky) to become the first local man to reach the semi-finals. He then came up against another Egyptian, former world No 1 Ramy Ashour, who proved too good, ending Lee’s history-making run with an 11-8, 11-9, 11-6 victory.
