Manila: After dropping the first set 12-21 to World No. 7 Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty of India, the World No. 9 Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia held serve to win the next two 21-14, 21-16 to ultimately beat the Indian pair in 53 minutes in the 2022 Badminton Asia Championships quarter-finals.
Malaysia is guaranteed at least a silver medal in the men’s doubles category when Chia/Soh will set up an all-Malaysian semi-final clash with compatriots – World No. 16 Goh Sze Fei/Nur Izzuddin in the semi-finals.
Goh/Izzuddin, on the other hand, played brilliantly to beat Ren Xiang Yu/Tan Qiang of China 21-19, 21-14. Ren/Tan shocked the No. 1 seeds Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan 21-9, 21-15 in the second round.
Two Indonesian men’s pairs – the No. 4 seeds Fajar Alfian/Muhammad Rian Ardianto and unseeded Pramudya Kusumawardana/Yeremia Erich Yoche Yacob Rambitan will face each other in the other semi-finals.
In men’s singles, Malaysia’s World No. 7 Lee Zii Jia showed off a fast pace game to beat World No. 14 Kanta Tsuneyama of Japan 21-13, 21-11 in 36 minutes to book a ticket to the semi-finals.
Lee will have a tough task in the semi-finals as he will take on the red-hot unseeded player – Weng Hong Yang of China on Saturday.
Weng who won the Korea Open in early April and whose playing style closely resembles Lin Dan, pulled off a huge upset on Friday by stunning No. 2 seed Anthony Sinisuka Ginting of Indonesia in three sets 21-13,16-21 and 21-11.
Jonatan Christie and Chico Aura Dwi Wardoyo of Indonesia are set to take on each other in another men’s singles semis.
