Basel: Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia showed exceptional determination and needed 45 minutes to beat Sai B. Praneeth of India 21-14, 21-17 in the quarter-finals of the Swiss Open on Friday.
Lee who was seeded-second will play eighth seed Kunlavut Vitidsarn of Thailand in the semi-finals.
Denmark’s No. 1 seed Viktor Axelsen also didn’t give No. 7 seed Shesar Hiren Rhustavito of Indonesia much chance after scoring a 21-17, 21-12 victory against the Indonesian. Axelsen will take on No. 4 seed Kidambi Srikanth of India on Saturday.
The No. 1 seeds in men’s doubles, Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik, competed hard to overcome second-set resistance from Indonesia’s Leo Rolly Carnando/Daniel Marthin and booked their spots in the Swiss Open semi-finals with a 21-18, 9-21, 21-16 win.
Chia/Soh will take on Mark Lamsfuss/Marvin Seidel of Germany in the semi-finals.
However, two other Malaysian men’s pairs, No.5 seeds Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi and unseeded Low Hang Yee/Ng Eng Cheong have crashed out of the tournament.
After losing to second seeds Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty of India in the quarter-finals of Toyota Thailand Open on Jan 22, 2021, Ong/Teo suffered another defeat against the Indian pair as they couldn’t capitalize on their second set lead of 12-9, 18-17, to eventually went down 21-12, 19-21, 12-21.
Meanwhile, unseeded Low Hang Yee/Ng Eng Cheong continued to play at a high level by putting a lot of pressure over No. 6 seeds Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen of Denmark, before losing the quarter-final match 17-21, 21-16, 13-21 in a 60 minutes battle.
