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World badminton champs opens in Los Angeles The first International Badminton Federation's world championships held in the United States opened here Monday with the surprising withdrawal of top seeded mixed doubles team from England. Nathan Robertson, who paired with Gail Emms to win an Olympic silver in Athens, sustained a sprained ankle during a training session on Sunday. Robertson and Emms had hoped to challenge China's Olympic gold medal duo of Zhang Jun and Gao Ling in a re-match in Anaheim, a California town near Los Angeles. 28-year-old Robertson and his partner Emms won the prestigious All England mixed doubles title in March and are ranked number one in the world this year. "We've had the results in the last few months to show that we've got what it takes to come away with a gold medal," Robertson said before leaving London for the World Championships. With the withdrawal of Robertson and Emms, Thailand's Songpol Anukritayawan and Kulchala Worawichitchaikul, the English pair's third-round opponent, will advance to the quarterfinals by walkover. Three of the remaining four top seeds will begin play Wednesday. In men's singles, John Moody had a lead in the first game of his match against ninth seed Wei Ng of Hong Kong before going down15- 12 and 15-4. In women's singles, Nathalie Deschamps of Belgium beat Rachel Hindley 11-4, 9-11 and 11-9. On Tuesday, the top-seeded women's doubles team of Yang Wei andZhang Jiewen of China will face Bulgaria's Diana Dimova and Linda Zechiri. Yang and Zhang won the Olympic gold medal in Athens lastyear.
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