Vietnam's top badminton player Nguyen Tien Minh secured his berth in the quarter-final round of the US Open Grand Prix Gold after defeating Kashyap Parupalli on July 14 in California.

Minh, seeded third here, dispatched his Indian rival easily, winning 21-18, 21-10 in 39 minutes.

It was the second consecutive time Minh beat Parupalli. The two met previously at Guangzhou 's Asian Games last November when Minh won 21-14, 22-20.

Minh, who is the last member of his Vietnamese team left standing, will face Bao Chunlai of China in the quarter-final round. Their matches have been numerous and Minh has never before beaten Bao, who is the former world No 2 and is ranked fifth in this tournament.

Earlier, Vietnamese duo Nguyen Hoang Nam and Tran Thanh Hai lost 11-21, 13-21 to Germans Ingo Kindervater and Johannes Schoettler, while another pair, Bui Bang Duc and Dao Manh Thang, were defeated 5-21, 8-21 by Hiroyuki Endo and Kenichi Hayakawa of Japan .

The tournament will conclude tomorrow when the winners walk away with a total bonus of 120,000 USD./.