New Delhi: The World No. 70 men’s singles player, Soong Joo Ven of Malaysia got off to a strong start in the 2022 India Open first round, completing the 28-minute opener with a 21-8, 21-7 win over World No. 98 Chirag Sen of India on Tuesday.
Soong will take on the reigning World Champion, Loh Kean Yew of Singapore in the second round.
Loh, on the other hand, was made to work by Canada’s World No. 69 Sheng Xiaodong. The Singaporean needed 50-minute to see off the Canadian 16-21, 21-4, 21-13.
“I played well today. Most importantly I was able to play with my own playing style,” said Soong.
“It’s going to be tough when playing against Kean Yew in the second round. We are friends, and I am excited to play against him,” added Soong who is currently an independent player and is playing for the Kuala Lumpur Racket Club (KLRC).
Meanwhile, another Malaysian independent men’s singles player, World No. 73 Cheam June Wei, suffered an early exit as he was knocked out by World No. 76 Sergey Sirant of Russia, losing 20-22, 18-21.
In men’s doubles, Malaysia’s World No. 11 Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi outlasted Ravikrishna PS/Sankar Prasad Udayakumar of India 21-19, 21-14 to meet another Indian pair – Utkarsh Arora/Akshan Shetty next.
Another Malaysian men’s doubles pair – Nur Mohd Azriyn Ayub Azriyn/Lim Khim Wah, fought hard, but couldn’t pull off an upset to go down to No. 6 seeds, M.R. Arjun/Dhruv Kapila of India 21-18, 17-21,15-21.
In the mixed doubles competition, both No. 1 seeds Tan Kian Meng/Lai Pei Jing and No. 3 seeds Chen Tang Jie/Peck Yen Wei have advanced to the second round. Tan/Lai will play Siddharth Jakhar/Megha Morchana Bora and Chen/Peck will meet Sai Pratheek K/Gayatri Gopichand Pullela on Thursday.
