All England Open badminton 2023: Carolina Marín and Yamaguchi Akane through to quarter-finals, Axelsen out

The 2016 Olympic badminton champion Carolina Marín and current world number 1 Yamaguchi Akane both safely navigated their All England Open women's singles round of 16 matches on Thursday (16 March).

Marín, the seventh seed in Birmingham, needed 41 minutes to hold off her American opponent Beiwen Zhang.

The opening game was never really close, despite Marín not being able to string a run of points together as Zhang repeatedly took the odd point.

The Spaniard managed a longest run of three consecutive points, but still kept her cool to pull away in spurts and take the opener 21–13.

By contrast, the second game was closer with the lead exchanging hands a few times. However, from 18–18, Marín took the last three points to avoid being forced to a decider, winning 21–13, 21–18.

Earlier, top seed and world number 1 Yamaguchi of Japan continued her charge into the quarter-finals.

Yamaguchi took just 35 minutes to rattle off a straight-games 21–13, 21–17 victory over Yvonne Li, improving her head-to-head record over her German opponent to 4–0.

Men's number 1 Viktor Axelsen, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion, suffered a shock defeat to Malaysian Ng Tze Yong (21-15, 9-21, 23-21) while Anders Antonsen defeated Lakshya Sen with ease (21-13, 21-15). Third seed Anthony Sinisuka Ginting won in three games, besting HS Prannoy 22-20, 15-21, 21-17.

In the final match-up of the day, fourth seed and 2022 Asian Championships winner Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia beat Nishimoto Kenta of Japan 21-15, 21-10.

Play continues on Thursday with further round of 16 matches in all five events, with number four seed Lee Zii Jia facing Naraoka Kodai.

Action is live on Olympic Channel via Olympics.com in some regions. Click here to watch live.