SINGAPORE – Malaysia’s men’s singles shuttler Ng Tze Yong and three mixed doubles pairs stormed into the quarterfinals of the Singapore Open badminton championships today.
The three mixed doubles pairs are Chen Tang Jie-Valeree Siow, Hoo Pang Ron-Toh Ee Wei and Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai.
Tze Yong was in his element in his second-round clash against world number 15 Lee Cheuk Yiu of Hong Kong, with the 22-year-old Malaysian romping home 21-15, 21-13 in just 33 minutes at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
Cheuk Yiu struggled to deal with Tze Yong’s attacking game as the Malaysian, showing maturity in managing his game, bombarded the Hong Kong shuttler with smashes to his forehand en route to sealing his maiden quarterfinal in a Super 500 category tournament.
“I am happy, as I managed to perform better than in my first-round match. My opponent is an experienced player, and I gave my best,” said world number 47 Tze Yong, who will meet world number six Anthony Ginting of Indonesia in tomorrow’s quarterfinal.
Ginting had to slog for slightly more than an hour before prevailing 21-12, 19-21, 21-16 against Taiwan’s Lin Chun Yi.
Looking ahead to his quarterfinal clash, Tze Yong said he would rather focus on his own game than think about his opponent.
Earlier, Tang Jie-Valeree adopted the right strategy en route to ousting Hong Kong’s Reginald Lee-Ng Tsz Yauof 21-13, 21-7.
The Malaysians switched to a fast-attacking game to nullify the threat of their Hong Kong opponents, leading the first game 7-1 and 15-6 before wrapping it up at 21-13.
In the second game, the Malaysians never let up and took leads of 9-2 and 15-6 before romping home 21-7.
“I think our performance today was very solid and consistent. We managed to study their game very well yesterday,” said Tang Jie.
In the quarterfinals tomorrow, they will meet world champions Dechapol Puavaranukroh-Sapsiree Taerattanachai after the top-seeded Thais booked their place by downing compatriots Supak Jomkoh-Supissara Paewsampran 22-20, 21-16.
World number 125 Pang Ron-Ee Wei then produced the shock of the day when they stunned Denmark’s world number 13 Matthias Christiansen-Alexandra Boje 21-11, 21-19.
“Today’s game was much better. We have got used to the environment here...the shuttle and the draught, so it was better than yesterday,” said Pang Ron.
The Malaysians were comfortably leading 7-2 in the first game when Boje needed medical attention for her arm injury and another interruption of more than five minutes for the same problem during the mid-interval.
“We never thought too much about Alexandra’s injury. I told Pang Ron that we needed to focus because no matter what, we had to fight. We needed to focus on our match and not the injury to our opponent,” said Ee Wei.
In the last eight, Pang Ron-Ee Wei will meet China’s Gua Xin Wa-Zhang Shu Xian.
Meanwhile, independent pair Soon Huat-Shevon fought back from losing the first game 10-21 to Malaysia Masters losing finalists Rinov Rivaldi-Pitha Haningtyas Mentari of Indonesia to win the next two games 21-18, 21-10 and check into the last eight.
They will now meet fourth seeds Tang Chun Man-Tse Ying Suet of Hong Kong.
However, it was the end of the road for Chan Peng Soon-Cheah Yee See in the Singapore Open, but not before giving it as good as they had en route to going down 18-21, 14-21 to world number 4 Wang Yi Lyu-Huang Dong Ping of China. – Bernama, July 14, 2022
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