Tokyo: The top four seeded women’s doubles pairs including No. 1 seed Yuki Fukushima/Sayaka Hirota, No. 2 seeds Misaki Matsutomo/Ayaka Takahashi of Japan, the 2017 world champions and No. 3 seeds Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan of China and Indonesia’s fourth seeds Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu all had a bye in the Japan Open women’s doubles first round on Wednesday.
That left No. 5 seeds Shiho Tanaka/Koharu Yonemoto of Japan to be the best ranked pair to take the court in the women’s doubles opening round. Unfortunately, they lost to Tang Jinhua/Yu Xiaohan of China 21-17, 21-10 in 44 minutes.
Tang/Yu will play another Japanese pair Nami Matsuyama/Chiharu Shida on Thursday.
Emily Kan/Isabel Zhong of USA sent a small shockwave in the first round as they won the opener against No. 7 seeds Lee So Hee/Shin Seung Chan of Korea when the Korean pair retired after leading 11-8 in the first set.
The pair from USA will take on Gabriela Stoeva/Stefani Stoeva of Bulgaria next.
The Japan Open is a BWF World Tour Super 750 tournament that offers $700,000 in total prize money.
