Dubai: The defending champion Lee Zii Jia suffered a defeat against Hong Kong’s Angus Ng Ka Long in the 2023 Badminton Asia Championships (BAC) first round on Wednesday.
Prior to Wednesday, Lee had 1 win and 2 losses against the World No. 17 player from Hong Kong.
Lee was once leading 10-5 in the first game, but Ng fought hard to win the game 21-19. The second game was one-sided where Ng was leading from 6-5 all the way to the end. Ng will play Japan’s Kanta Tsuneyama next.
Another Malaysian men’s singles player, Ng Tze Yong also went down to another Hong Kong player, Lee Cheuk Yiu 17-21, 18-21.
Despite the disappointment in the men’s singles, Malaysia’s World No. 2 men’s pair Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik withstood the challenge from Leo Rolly Carnando/Daniel Marthin, to eventually survive a huge scare to edge past the World No. 10 Indonesians 19-21, 21-19, 22-20.
This was a sweet revenge for Chia/Soh as they were defeated by the same pair in 2023 All England first round on March 15, 2023.
Chia/Soh will play the Tokyo Olympics gold medalists Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin of Taiwan in the second round.
Also advanced was Malaysia’s No. 8 seeds Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi when they beat M.R. Arjun/Dhruv Kapila from India 12-21, 21-16, and 21-12. Ong/Teo are set to meet Ayato Endo/Yuta Takei of Japan in the second round.
The World No. 28 Man Wei Chong/Tee Kai Wun also cruised into the second round after beating P.S Ravikrishna/Sankar Prasad Udayakumar of India 21-12, 21-17. The young Malaysian men’s pair will meet No. 4 seeds Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi of Japan on Thursday.
