Kuching: On a Wednesday that filled with upsets at the Malaysia Open held in Kuching, Sarawak, Or Chin Chung/Tang Chun Man of Hong Kong provided a stunning first-round casualty by defeating No. 1 men’s doubles pair Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong 21-17, 23-21.
The No. 1 seeds Malaysian pair struggled to find their rhythms in the opener, making a lot of unforced errors to go down in 36 minutes.
Fortunately, the home crowd however had some consolations when two young Malaysian men’s doubles pairs pulled off major upsets to move into the second round.
Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi needed 62 minutes to dispose No. 6 seeds of Denmark Mads Conrad Petersen/Mads Pieler Kolding 21-19, 16-21, 21-10 victory which earned them a tough test with China’s men’s doubles legend Fu Haifeng and Fu’s new partner Zheng Siwei on Thursday.
Fu Haifeng-Siwei had earlier defeated Russia’s 2016 All England men’s doubles champions Vladimir Ivanov/Ivan Sozonov 22-20, 17-21, 21-14 in 46 minutes.
World No. 53 pair of Chooi Kah Ming/Low Juan Shen also created another shocker when they dispatched Taiwan’s Lee Jhe-huei/Lee Yang 22-20, 21-16 and set up a second round meeting with another Chinese pair, Chai Biao/Hong Wei who beat Singapore’s Danny Bawa Chrisnanta/Hendra Wijaya 21-15, 21-13.
Out of sorts and out of answers, Malaysia’s Rio Olympics mixed doubles silver medalists Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying also suffered an early exit similar to Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong after bowing out to Indonesia’s Edi Subaktiar/Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja, 21-18, 19-21, 17-21 in their opener.
The upsets continue to rain down in the first round of Malaysia Open when last week’s India Open women’s singles champion P.V Sindhu was stunned by Chen Yufei of China, losing 21-18, 19-21, 17-21 in 68 minutes.
Men’s singles No. 6 seeds Tian Houwei also beaten by Brice Leverdez of France, crashing out 21-17, 21-16 in 37 minutes.
