Ruthless Danai in semis

Danai Udomchoke maintained his impressive run in the US$50,000 McDonald's Burnie International yesterday, edging second seeded Lu Yenhsun of Taiwan 76 (72) 76 (75) in the quarterfinals.

A day after beating his best friend Sebastien Rieschick, Danai was forced to play another close buddy in Lu, ranked world No 65. But the sixth-seeded Thai put aside his friendship and displayed the venom of his natural game, which has been on an upward curve since the Australian Open.

Awaiting him in today's quarterfinal is another good friend, Jimmy Wang of Taiwan, who cruised past Benjamin Mitchell of Australia 63 60.

"I don't know what is it with this tournament - I have to play my best friends every day! We don't really want to play each other but what can we do? I just have to go out there and do my job,'' said Danai.

In the doubles quarterfinals, Danai and Rieschick joined hands to beat Erik Chvojka of Canada and Adam Hubble of Australia 62 57 1311.