Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia’s World No. 9 men’s doubles pair, Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik remained very focused despite being regarded as one of the favorites to win the Swiss Open title.
The Swiss Open that will be held in Basel, Switzerland, from March 2 to March 7, is a BWF World Tour Super 300 event that offers total prize money of USD $140 000. More importantly, it also provides Olympic qualification points.
The Super 300 event could also be the best opportunity for Chia/Soh to pick up their first international title since they were paired in 2017.
“We may face Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong or Vladimir Ivanov-Ivan Sozonov in the semi-final,” said Chia.
“Anyway, we are ready to compete at this tournament, especially it also offers qualifying points for the Tokyo Olympics. After returning from Thailand, we have been working on improving our weaknesses,” added Chia.
Since being paired in 2017, Chia/Soh were able to reach the final of six tournaments (2017 Tata Open India International, 2018 Malaysia International, 2018 Vietnam International, 2018 SaarLorLux Open, 2019 All England Open, 2020/2021 Toyota Thailand Open) but always walked away with the silver medals. Nevertheless, they were able to win a gold medal at the 2019 SEA Games in the Philippines.
After the Swiss Open, the pair chose to not participate in the 2021 All England scheduled to take place in Birmingham on March 17 to 21.
“Since the All England does not offer qualifying points to the Olympics, and the COVID-19 situation there also made us a little worried. So we decided to withdraw from the tournament,” continued Chia.
“We will focus more on tournaments that offer qualifying points for the Olympics,” explained Chia.
Chia/Soh will open against New Zealand doubles Oliver Leydon Davis/Abhinav Manota in Basel, they may face No. 8 seeds Ben Lane/Sean Vendy of England or Leo Rolly Carnando/Daniel Marthin of Indonesia in the quarter-final. It’s not easy to take on either the England and or the Indonesian pair as both pairs have proved that they were world-beaters when competing at the 3 Thailand Opens and BWF World Tour finals what was held in Thailand in January of 2021.
