Zhao Junpeng fights to the quarterfinals at Badminton Worlds

HUELVA, Spain -- Chinese shuttler Zhao Junpeng edged Nhat Nguyen of Ireland 21-19, 19-21, 21-18 on Thursday to advance to the men's singles quarterfinals at the BWF World Championships.

25-year-old Zhao secured his place in the last eight in his first World Championships tour, and is the only Chinese player in the men's singles quarterfinals. His opponent on Friday will be Lakshya Sen of India.

Playing the last match of the day, Zhao gave the Chinese team something to cheer after his compatriot Lu Guangzu had lost to Srikanth Kidambi of India 21-10, 21-15.

"Srikanth did not make any mistakes today and had better control of the game. I was dragged to a tempo I was not comfortable with. I tried to change my strategy but it did not work well," said Lu.

Lu added that he needs more experience, especially when facing strong players with different styles. "Hopefully I can close the gap between me and the top players next season."

In the women's singles, three Chinese players out of four won their games to advance to the quarterfinals. Zhang Yiman, Han Yue and He Bingjiao beat their counterparts, while Wang Zhiyi lost to World Tournament Final champion An Se-young of South Korea, 17-21, 22-20, 21-19.

"An Se-young is a very patient player in long rallies. I needed to be patient as well and I believed I did it well today," said 21-year-old Wang. "But when I needed to change the pace to attack or smash, I was a bit hesitant."

Wang told Xinhua she hoped to play more games against top players next season and achieve more breakthroughs in world tournaments.

In the women's doubles, Tokyo Olympic silver medalists Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan outplayed Canada's pair of Rachel Honderich and Kristen Tsai 21-11, 21-17. Li Wenmei and Zheng Yu lost to Rin Iwanaga and Kie Nakanishi of Japan, 21-12, 17-21, 21-18.

Paired with Huang Dongping, Zheng had won the Denmark Open women's doubles title in October. 22-year-old Li had contributed to winning the Sudirman Cup and Uber Cup for China. However, Zheng and Li have never advanced further than the round of 16 at a World Championships when paired with each other.

"We just needed a little more patience to secure points," said Zheng. "Sometimes we lost straight points so quickly and it was hard to fight back."

As the only men's doubles pair from China in the round of 16, He Jiting and Tan Qiang edged Tokyo Olympic bronze medalists Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia, 17-21, 21-14, 21-16.

"After we lost the opener, we tried to make some changes on serving and counter-attacking in the second set," said Tan, "We did not give up, but became even more confident in defense in the decider. That's why we could overturn the game."