Fuzhou: Malaysia’s mixed doubles No. 7 seeds Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying had to dig deep to progress to the second round of the China Open on Wednesday, eventually beating Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Ashwini Ponnappa of India 18-21, 21-19, 21-17 in their first round clash.
Chan/Goh will face Praveen Jordan/Melati Daeva Oktavianti of Indonesia in the second round.
“It’s always tricky to play against opponents who were trained by coaches from Malaysia. We lost in the first set because they had good anticipation of our shots. We changed our strategies in the next two sets to pull it off,” said Chan.
“Liu Ying and I are trying to adapt to the atmosphere in the stadium through playing the matches.”
“We hope to keep improving our first round victory,” added Chan.
Meanwhile, another Malaysian mixed doubles pair, Tan Kian Meng/Lai Pei Jing continued to struggle for their 2018 season when they barely able to stand for attacks from No. 2 seeds Wang Yilyu/Huang Dongping of China, losing 15-21, 5-21 in just 31 minutes.
The Chinese pair will meet Rinov Rivaldy/Debby Susanto of Indonesia on Thursday.
In men’s singles, Daren Liew has battled his way into the second round of the China Open on a day of mixed results for Malaysia, but it wasn’t good news for Chong Wei Feng.
Liew who won the bronze medal at this year’s World Championships, fought tooth and nail against Jan O Jorgensen of Denmark before outlasting the Dane 18-21, 25-23, 21-6 in a three-set battle. The Malaysian player will face No. 4 seed Chou Tien Chen of Taiwan next.
Another Malaysian men’s singles player, Chong Wei Feng, however, was defeated by No. 8 seed Anthony Sinisuka Ginting of Indonesia, going down 11-21, 14-21 in 34 minutes. Ginting will set up second round meeting with teammate Jonatan Christie.
