Bangkok: After 65 minutes of a grueling and thrilling battle, Malaysia’s World No. 14 men’s pair Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong lost to World No. 7 Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin 16-21, 23-21, 19-21 in the final of YONEX Thailand Open.
In the second set, Goh/Tan saved two match points, coming from 18-20, including surviving a huge escape when Wang Chi-Lin’s smash hit the net, and the shuttlecock landed out of bounds to tie the score at 20-20 before winning the game in 24 minutes.
However, Goh/Tan failed to continue their momentum in the decider, trailing by most of the game to go down to the Taiwanese pair in 26 minutes.
This was Goh/Tan’s third consecutive career defeat to Lee/Wang, after losing the final of 2019 Korean Masters and the second round of 2020 Indonesia Masters.
“Winning today was great because we’ve played as a pair since 2019, so it’s just two years, so it’s good for us,” Lee told BWF.
“We now have more power, better defense, and more skill. We want to keep going.”
Tan Wee Kiong told Malaysian media that he and Goh performed very well in the match, and it’s very unfortunate to lose by only two points.
“The opponent played very fast at the beginning. We were caught off-guard a little but we were able to control the pace at the end of the second set. We tried to catch up with their tempo, but their performance was more stable.”
“We’ll regroup and start focusing on next week’s Toyota Thailand Open, as we will open against Lee Yong-Dae/Kim Ki-Jung. We must play that match like a final,” added Tan.
“We are very happy to be in the finals because this is the first event of this year. I hope we can continue to perform well.”
In the mixed doubles event, No. 1 seeds Sapsiree Taerattanachai/Dechapol Puavaranukroh of Thailand overcame Praveen Jordan/Melati Daeva Oktavianti of Indonesia 21-3, 20-22, 21-18 in the final.
