Former Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat was knocked out of the Malaysian Open Thursday, in a shock straight sets loss to fellow Indonesian Simon Santoso in the second round.

The Athens 2004 Olympic gold medalist looked lost at times and made several errors against his younger and fitter teammate.

Taufik had no excuses for the 21-18, 21-16 drubbing, refusing to blame a back injury suffered prior to the Malaysian event.

"My back injury is no excuse for my bad performance today. I simply lost," he told AFP.

China's world champion Zhu Lin was meanwhile given an early scare before beating Hong Kong's Zhou Mi 11-21, 21-17, 21-16.

Zhu, who is the defending champion here, shocked the crowd with a somewhat hapless first set against Zhou but bounced back to book a spot in the quarter-finals.

Zhou, who won in Malaysia in 2003, tried to rally in the third set for an upset but was outmanoeuvred by Zhu, who will play teammate Lu Lan in the next round of the women's singles competition.

Lu, the fourth seed, also got off to a rocky start before beating Germany's Juliane Schenk 21-15, 21-8.

The winner of last year's Denmark Super Series was pressured in the first set as Schenk remained on her heels, forcing the Chinese player to make several errors.

However Lu remained composed and brushed Schenk aside effortlessly in the second set.

Meanwhile, English pair Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms extended their stay in the Malaysian capital by defeating Russians Vitalij Durkin and Valeri Sorokina 21-19, 21-18 in the mixed doubles event.

The South Korean team of Lee Yong Dae and Lee Hyo Jung meanwhile stunned seventh seed Thomas Laybourn and Kamilia Rytter Juhl of Denmark 21-15, 20-22, 21-19 in the other mixed doubles match of the day. (*)

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