Bangkok: Malaysia’s World No. 14 women’s doubles pair Chow Mei Kuan/Lee Meng Yean pulled off an upset when they stunned the YONEX Thai Open champions, Greysia Polii/Apriyani Rahayu from Indonesia in their last Group A match of the BWF World Tour Finals in Bangkok on Friday.
Chow/Lee did not make easy mistakes and were extremely focused, trying to score one point at a time which saw them walked away with a straight set victory of 21-13, 21-17 over Polii/Rahayu and successfully moved on into the semi-finals.
The Malaysian pair earned a chance to exact revenge against World No. 4 Lee So Hee/Shin Seung Chan of Korea in the semi-finals after they lost to the Korean pair in their second Group A match on Thursday.
Jongkolphan Kititharakul/Rawinda Prajongjai of Thailand will take on another Korean pair, Kim So Yeong/Kong Hee Yong in another women’s doubles semi-finals.
In a must-win Group B match, the mixed doubles World No. 12 Goh Soon Huat/Shevon Jemie Lai scored their second victory by defeating World No. 8 Hafiz Faizal/Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja of Indonesia 17-21, 21-13, 21-13 in 57 minutes. Goh/Lai will play Seo Seung Jae/Chae Yujung of Korea while Dechapol Puavaranukroh/Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Thailand will take on Thom Gicquel/Delphine Delrue of France on Saturday.
Malaysia’s two men’s doubles pairs, Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik and Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi failed to advance to the knock out stage after losing to Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia 18-21, 21-17, 21-11 and Ben Lane/Sean Vendy of England 21-15, 21-13 respectively on Friday.
