Minh into World Badminton Championships round 3 in Paris

Vietnam’s badminton champ Nguyen Tien Minh booked a third-round berth at the 2010 World Badminton Championships in Paris after a straight-set win over Estonian rival Raul Must on Wednesday.

It took the eighth-ranked Vietnamese player 42 minutes to overcome his Estonian opponent, who is 34 places lower than Minh in the world rankings.

Minh, the only Vietnamese player to enter the world top 100, had little difficulty before cruising to a 21-14, 21-10 victory.

Minh, who beat the 70th-ranked Ukrainian Valeriy Atrashchenkov the day before, started strong and was in the lead all the way into the first set.

The Estonian got close (12-10 for Minh) but, from there, the Vietnamese galloped home winning the set 21-14.

After taking a big loss in the first set, Must caused Minh some hardship early in the second.

However, Minh, who slid one spot to eighth in the world rankings after failing to defend his title at the Yonex Chinese Taipei Grand Prix Gold early this month, proved his ranking with a 21-10 victory in the second round.

Minh aims to advance to the quarterfinals at the August 23-29 event in Paris. At the World Badminton Championships in India in 2009, Minh lost 21-13, 21-17 to the Malaysian world champion Lee Chong Wei.