Gniezno: Malaysia’s World No. 96 men’s singles player, Iskandar Zulkarnain, competed in two matches on Friday at the 2021 Polish Open to advance to the quarter-finals.
Zulkarnain rallied past Emre Lale in the first match with 21-18, 21-18 before stunning the No. 7 seed and World No. 84 Raul Must from Estonia 21-8, 21-11. He will face No. 2 seed and the 2015 European Games men’s singles gold medalist Pablo Abian of Spain on Saturday.
The 2017 Asian Junior Championships champion, Leong Jun Hao also made the quarter-finals. He seemed struggling a little bit in both matches on Friday, winning 9-21, 21-17, 21-17 against Jan Louda of the Czech Republic before eking out another tough win against Miha Ivanic of Slovenia 15-21, 21-14, 21-19. Leong will take on No. 5 seed Luis Enrique Penalver of Spain next.
Also in the men’s singles, quarter-finals were Ng Tze Yong and Sholeh Aidil. Ng will meet Daniel Nikolov of Bulgaria while Aidil will battle local shuttler, Michal Rogalski, in the final eight.
Two Malaysian men’s pairs also advanced to the quarter-finals. Chang Yee Jun/Chia Weijie are set to play William Kryger Boe/Christian Faust Kjær of Denmark while Man Wei Chong/Tee Kai Wun will fight Gijs Duijs/Wessel Van Der Aar of Netherlands for a semi-final berth.
In the women’s singles competition, unseeded Eoon Qi Xuan of Malaysia faces a tough quarter-final match as she will play No. 2 seed Kristin Kuuba of Estonia while Choong Hon Jian/Toh Ee Wei will play Maciej Matusz/Szubert Karolina of Poland in the mixed doubles quarter-finals.
