Rio de Janeiro: After beating Robert Mateusiak-Nadiezda Zieba of Poland in the quarterfinals with 21-17, 21-10, Malaysian mixed doubles pair of Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying has worked hard to ensure at least a silver medal for Malaysia when they reached the mixed doubles final on Monday.
Ranked No. 11th in the world, Chan/Goh put on a powerful and relentless display to completely overwhelm and destroy the World No. 6 mixed doubles pair of Xu Chen/Ma Jin of China in the mixed doubles semi-finals, winning 21-12, 21-19.
Chan/Goh will face Indonesia’s Ahmad Tontowi-Liliyana Natsir in the final. Ahmad Tontowi-Liliyana Natsir also have a relatively easy semi-final match when they were able to defeat defending champions and No. 1 seeds Zhang Nan/Zhao Yunlei of China 21-16, 21-15.
For the record, Ahmad Tontowi-Liliyana Natsir had beaten Chan/Goh 21-15, 21-11 in their Group C match that was held last Saturday. It would be interesting to see if Chan/Goh could make some adjustment and bounce back in the final.
Malaysia have never had any mixed doubles pair manage to reach the Olympic final nor to win any mixed doubles medals since the sport made its Olympic debut at the 1992 Barcelona Games.
