Kuching: With one fell rather easily and another failed to come back from one set down, two Malaysian pairs of mixed doubles pair Chan Peng Soon/Lai Pei Jing and men’s doubles pair Tan Wee Kiong/Goh V Shem exited Malaysia Masters on Saturday and helped set another low point in Malaysian badminton.
Chan Peng Soon/Lai Pei Jing were no match for the top seeds Joachim Fischer Nilsen/Christinna Pedersen of Denmark in mixed doubles semi-final, they were shut down by the Denmark pair 10-21, 7-21 in just 32 minutes.
Joachim Fischer Nilsen/Christinna Pedersen will face Praveen Jordan/Debby Susanto of Indonesia in the final.
Malaysia’s lone men’s doubles pair – Tan Wee Kiong/Goh V Shem’s hope of entering the final of Malaysia Masters was dashed by eight seeds Chen Hung Ling/Wang Chi-Lin of Taiwan in the semi-final. The Malaysian pair went down fighting to crash out 18-21, 21-19, 12-21 in 50 minutes.
Men’s singles semi-final saw Korean veteran Lee Hyun-il showed his never-say-die attitude against his younger opponent Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk of Thailand. The Korean played with speed and deadly shots to claim the match in straight sets. Lee will take on compatriot Jeon Hyeok Jin in the final. Jeon prevailed in a grueling men’s singles semi-final battle over Indian shuttler Ajay Jayaram.
Meanwhile, women’s singles semi-final between Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara and India’s P.V. Sindhu resembled the story of David versus Goliath, literally. The 2012 world junior champion from Japan, with the height of only 1.55m, turned on her giant-killing badminton to deny P.V. Sindhu who stood at 1.78 m. Okuhara broke Sindhu 19-21, 21-13, 21-8 in 84 minutes to clash with compatriot Sayaka Takahashi in the women’s singles final on Sunday.
After the match, P.V Sindhu agreed that Okuhara was a tough nut to crack.
“Most Japanese players are not tall, however, shuttler such as Nozomi can run all over the court and has very good control of the game,” said Sindhu.
Christinna Pedersen/Kamilla Rytter Juhl of Denmark will play Japanese pair Naoko Fukuman/Kurumi Yonao in the women’s doubles final on Sunday.
