Hangzhou: Malaysia’s Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik cheered up the Malaysian badminton camp on Friday when they successfully qualified for the semi-finals of the 2023 Asian Games.
On a day when all other Malaysian players were stranded in the quarter-finals, the world No. 5 men’s doubles pair defeated Chinese duo Liu Yu Chen and Ou Xuan Yi 21-18, 19-21, 21-18 at the Binjiang Gymnasium.
“It’s a relief for us after making it to the semi-finals. Our draw was not easy and from the first day, we faced a long and difficult match,” said Soh. “But I’m very satisfied with the way we played, with Aaron, and I think we put on our best performance today.”
Chia/Soh will face world No. 3 doubles pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty from India in the semi-finals on Saturday.
In men’s singles, both Lee Zii Jia and Ng Tze Yong were stopped in the quarter-finals.
Lee showed great fighting spirit to collect point after point but still fell short in his bid to advance to the semi-finals against HS Prannoy of India.
Prannoy, the tournament’s fifth seed, who is said to have suffered a back injury, won the match 21-16, 21-23, 22-20 in 78 minutes. The Indian player will play Li Shi Feng of China in the semi-finals.
Lee was at a loss for words after the match, even though he knew that he had given his best.
“It’s strange because sometimes you’ve given your best, you’ve done everything right but the results show otherwise,” he said. “However, that doesn’t matter because in the end we just want a result. That’s the reality.”
“For myself, for the Malaysian fans, it’s not that I don’t want a result but this is a process that I have to go through. I’m not sure how long it will take. I learn from every match, I learn in every tournament. In fact, I can’t accept it myself.”
Ng Tze Yong, on the other hand, lost to Kodai Naraoka of Japan 22-24, 15-21 in another quarter-final match.
The mixed doubles quarter-final saw Chen Tang Jie/Toh Ee Wei go down to Zheng Si Wei/Huang Ya Qiong 14-21, 21-23 while Pearly Tan/Thinaah Muralitharan were defeated by women’s doubles second seeds Baek Ha Na/Lee So Hee 21-15, 11-21, 7-21.
