Tokyo: After they were eliminated from the first round of Indonesia Open last week, Malaysia’s World No. 11 men’s pair Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik have booked a spot into the quarter-final of Japan Open with a brilliant performance on Thursday.
The 2019 All-England runners-up had to dig deep before winning the hard-fought second round battle against China’s World No. 6 Hang Cheng Kai-Zhou Hao Dong with 22-20, 23-25, 21-14 in 65 minutes.
“We are quite happy with the result of the match but we also repeated some of our bad habits in the second set,” said Chia
“When we were leading in the second set, we failed to win points at a crucial moment,” added Chia.
The pair will meet World No. 1 Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo of Indonesia next.
Malaysia’s World No. 5 mixed doubles pair Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying have also advanced to the Japan Open quarter-finals by beating Thom Gicquel/Delphine Delrue of France 21-18, 21-11.
Chan/Goh will face No. 3 seeds Yuta Watanabe/Arisa Higashino of Japan in the last 8.
“We are aiming for the semi-finals. Hopefully we are able to create some surprises on Friday,” said Goh.
Meanwhile, in men’s singles, Japan’s World No. 1 Kento Momota managed to overcome Kantaphon Wangcharoen of Thailand 21-12, 21-13 to set up a quarter-final clash with No. 7 seed Anthony Sinisuka Ginting of Indonesia.
