Birmingham: The reigning champion Lee Zii Jia from Malaysia fended off a resurgent Brian Yang of Canada 26-24 in a pulsating first set battle, before smashing his way to destroy Yang and win the second game 21-11 to storm into the quarter-finals of the All England on Thursday.
The World No. 7 Malaysian will next set up a rematch of last year’s All England quarter-finals with former World No. 1 Kento Momota of Japan.
On Thursday, Momota faced some difficulties defending cross-court smashing from World No. 30 Heo Kwanghee of Korea early in the first game. After Momota got used to the playing style from the Korean, he slowly turned the table and wrapped up the second round match 21-16, 21-12 in 42 minutes.
When Lee and Momota met in the 2021 All England quarter-finals, Momota was playing in his first tournament since surviving a fatal car accident on Jan 13, 2020. The Japanese was obviously not at his best and Lee took care of the business 21-16, 21-19. It’ll be interesting to see if Momota will get his revenge on Friday.
In another men’s singles match, Malaysia’s Daren Liew was again playing with some amazing net shots to steal the first game from World No. 4 Chou Tien Chen of Taiwan but ran out of steam in the decider to went down to the Taiwanese 21-18, 13-21, 9-21. Chou will face Jonatan Christie of Indonesia who defeated last week’s German Open champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn 21-16, 21-19.
In men’s doubles, both Malaysian men’s pairs – Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik and Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi were sent packing in the second round.
The World No. 7 Chia/Soh were outlasted by World No. 19 He Ji Ting/Tan Qiang of China 15-21, 19-21 while the World No. 11 Ong/Teo were beaten by World No. 28 Muhammad Shohibul Fikri/Bagas Maulana of Indonesia 22-24, 21-13, 17-21.
