Orleans: In a pulsating matchup of the young men’s doubles pairs from Malaysia and France, World No. 103 Arif Junaidi/Muhammad Haikal stepped onto the badminton court at Palais des Sports arena to face World No. 72 Eloi Adam/Julien Maio of France in the 2022 Orleans Masters semi-finals on Saturday.
Despite having a lower ranking, Junaidi/Haikal broke early to take the first set from Adam/Maio 21-18. After 13-13 in the second game, the Malaysian pair quickly coasted to a 21-16 second set win.
The World No. 103 pair from Malaysia will take on World No. 51 Ruben Jille/Ties Van Der Lecq of Netherlands in the final.
In mixed doubles, although Yap Roy King/Teoh Mei Xing of Malaysia were leading at the beginning of both the first and second game, unfortunately, the Malaysians couldn’t sustain momentum to get the job done. Their Indonesian opponents – World No. 49 Rehan Naufal Kusharjanto/Lisa Ayu Kusumawati managed to come from 3-9 down in the first game and 4-9 in the second game to ultimately sent Yap/Teoh packing with 21-16, 21-15 semi-final victory on Saturday.
Kusharjanto/Kusumawati will meet the 2022 India Open champions Terry Hee Yong Kai/Tan Wei Han of Singapore in the final. Hee/Tan needed only 30 minutes to overcome Fabien Delrue/Vimala Heriau of France 21-13, 21-12 in the final four.
The men’s singles actions on Saturday saw No. 4 seed Toma Junior Popov of France overcame his younger brother Christo Popov 15-21, 21-11, 21-13 to set up a final matchup with Mithun Manjunath of India.
Meanwhile, in women’s singles, Iris Wang of the USA will play Putri Kusuma Wardani of Indonesia in the final while last week’s Swiss Open champions – Gabriela Stoeva/Stefani Stoeva of Bulgaria will try to win their second consecutive title in two weeks when they meet Stine Kuespert/Emma Moszczynski of Germany in the Orleans Masters final.
