SINGAPORE — Guam stunned India to move to the top of its 2018 World Cup qualifying group Tuesday, while Japan saw its campaign get off to a rocky start as it was held to a goalless draw by Singapore. Reigning Asian champion Australia scraped past a gritty Kyrgyzstan with a 2-1 victory. South Korea, China and the United Arab Emirates, meanwhile, had no such problems with all winning their opening matches in their bids to qualify for the 2018 tournament in Russia. The tiny Pacific island of Guam produced Tuesday's most remarkable result, with the Matao winning 2-1 against an opponent which is currently 33 spots ahead of it in the FIFA world rankings. Looking to build on its 1-0 win over Turkmenistan Thursday, Guam took the lead at the GFA National Training Center after 38 minutes when Brandon McDonald headed in Ryan Guy's long throw-in. Travis Nicklaw extended the advantage in the 62nd minute when he received a long pass from his elder brother Shawn and fired home on the turn. Sunil Chhetri got a consolation goal for India with the last kick of the game but it did little to take the shine off the result for Guam, which moved to the top of Group D with six points from two games. Australia will count itself lucky that it didn't suffer a similar fate as India. Mile Jedinak gave the Socceroos an early lead in the second minute of the game when his free kick from 25 yards out wasn't stopped by the Kyrgyzstan keeper Valery Kashuba. But then instead of buckling under the pressure, the home side went on the attack and caused quite a few problems for the ragged Aussie defense. The second half saw a similar script with Kyrgyzstan extremely unlucky not to score as it hit the side netting three times. But then in the 67th minute Tommy Oar, who had come on as a substitute just nine minutes earlier, scored the second goal for Australia. Kyrgyzstan tried to keep up the attacking tempo but could only find a consolation goal through Azamat Baimatov in injury time. It left the central Asians ruing the missed chances that could have caused a big upset. Japan, meanwhile, dominated its opening match in Group E in the second round of Asian qualifying against Singapore but it failed to make their possession count against the Lions at a packed Saitama Stadium 2002. The Blue Samurai are aiming to qualify for a sixth consecutive World Cup, but Singapore goalkeeper Izwan Mahbud made a string of excellent saves to deny the home side, including a pair of superb stops to keep out second-half headers by Shinji Okazaki and Keisuke Honda. Honda went closest to breaking the deadlock with a 73rd minute free-kick that came back off the crossbar. The stalemate meant that Singapore moved to the top of Group E with four points following its 4-0 win against Cambodia Thursday. Afghanistan is level with second-placed Syria on three points. South Korea, which is eyeing a ninth consecutive World Cup appearance, started well in Group G as goals in either half by Lee Jae-sung and Bayer Leverkusen's Son Heung-min gave it a 2-0 win over Myanmar. China also made an excellent start in Group C with striker Yang Xu netting a hat trick in a 6-0 thrashing of Bhutan at Thimphu, but Asian Cup semifinalist UAE had to work hard for a 1-0 win over Timor Leste in Group A as Omar Abdulrahman netted the only goal 10 minutes from time. Hong Kong lead the way in Group C after a 2-0 win over Maldives, Thailand sits atop Group F after winning 2-0 at Chinese Taipei and North Korea is frontrunner in Group H following a 4-2 victory over Uzbekistan in Pyongyang. Malaysia endured more misery, however, as it was tanked 6-0 at home by Palestine. In other results: Iran drew with Turkmenistan 1-1; and the Philippines beat Yemen 2-0. Asia's road to Russia 2018 resumes in September. — Agencies
