Saarbrucken: Both men’s doubles No. 6 seeds Goh V Shem/Teo Ee Yi and Ong Yew Sin/Tan Wee Kiong of Malaysia have had a good start on 2017 Bitburger Badminton Open that conducted its’ first rounds of men’s doubles on Wednesday, in Germany.
Goh V Shem/Teo Ee Yi stayed positive and cruised to a comfortable 21-12, 21-16 over Bastian Kersaudy/Julien Maio of France in 31 minutes. They will play last week’s French Open semi-finalists Tan Qiang/He Jiting of China in the second round.
Another Malaysian men’s pair Ong Yew Sin/Tan Wee Kiong managed to advance to the second round while barely breaking a sweat after their opponents provided a walkover. Ong/Tan will meet Mathias Bay-smidt/Frederik Sogaard of Denmark on Thursday.
Wednesday was a short workday for both men’s singles players from Malaysia. The No. 16 seed Iskandar Zulkarnain outlasted Max Weisskirchen of Germany 21-13, 21-12 in 25 minutes, while No. 14 seed Lee Zii Jia saw off Artem Pochtarov of Ukraine 21-13, 21-11 in just 32 minutes.
Zulkarnain is set to play No. 5 seed Huang Yuxiang of China next while Lee will battle No. 6 seed Qiao Bin of China for a spot in the quarter-finals.
In women’s competition, No. 8 seed Soniia Cheah of Malaysia squandered a 5 point lead in the first set, allowing Yvonne Li of Germany to comeback from 14-19 to win the game 25-23. Similar situation happened again in the second set where Cheah allowed Li to claw back from 2-9 to claim the second game 21-17. Li will play Chiang Mei Hui of Taiwan in the round of 16th.
Meanwhile, women’s singles No. 1 seed Zhang Beiwen of USA stormed past Kate Foo Kune of Mauritius 21-18, 21-11 to reach the Bitburger second round. Zhang will take on unseeded Dane Line Hojmark Kjarsfeldt tomorrow.
