Auckland: In the second round of New Zealand Badminton Open mixed doubles, the brother-sister top seed Oliver and Susannah Leydon-Davis from New Zealand were knocked out of the mixed doubles event by Malaysia’s Koo Kien Keat and Ng Hui Lin.
Koo Kien Keat is a five-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist, it’s no surprise to the fans when he and Ng Hui Lin was able to defeat the top seeded New Zeadland pair.
After the match, the New Zealand pair were hugely dissapointed with their performance.
“It was very challenging and it was disappointing to come out of the game losing,” said 21 year old Susannah. “We had a great start in the second set and just when we thought we are in control of the game all of the sudden, the Malaysian pair were smarter and changed their speed, and we didn’t react to thier promptly.”
Oliver was unhappy about the result because, at one point, they were leading 15 – 8 in the second set.
“Like Susannah said, they changed their game midway through the second and we couldn’t react to it but they are a classy pair and while it was disappointing not to close it we will put this one down to experience and next time maybe we can close the game out.”
Koo ang Ng will take on 5th seeded Irfan Fadhilah and Emanuelle Widjaja (Indonesia) in the next round.
In Koo Kien Keat’s men’s doubles match, he and his new partner Pakkawat Vilailak (Thailand) were defeated by Japanese pairing Yuya Komatsuzaki and Hiroki Takeuchi 21-16 21-17.
