Birmingham: After losing a 16-10 lead in the first set, Malaysia’s World No. 8 men’s pair Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik pulled off a wild comeback first set victory by saving two game points to beat Taiwan’s World No. 19 Lu Ching Yao/Yang Po Han 24-22.
The Malaysian pair was in total control in the second set, overcoming Lu/Yang 21-17 to set up the quarter-final meeting with No. 1 seeds Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo of Indonesia on Friday.
Although another Malaysian men’s pair, Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi put up a strong fight, but they couldn’t get past No. 7 seeds Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin of Taiwan by losing 19-21, 16-21 in 40 minutes in the All England second round.
In men’s singles, World No. 13 Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia was looking comfortable and produced a brilliant performance to beat Chinese player Lu Guang Zu 21-10, 21-16 in 36 minutes. He will play No. 3 seed Chen Long in the final 8.
Chen Long, on the other hand, advanced to the quarter-finals after defeating the Chinese badminton legend, Lin Dan, 21-17, 21-8 in 45 minutes.
Meanwhile, No. 1 seed Chou Tien Chen from Taiwan was dragged into an 83-minute marathon match before saving a match point in the second set and ended up beating unseeded Kanta Tsuneyama of Japan 19-21, 26-24, 21-13.
Chou will face compatriot Wang Tzu Wei next.
