Seoul: Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong of Malaysia have moved into the Korea Open semi-finals after the Rio Olympics silver medalists seeing off No. 2 seeds Chai Biao/Hong Wei of China 21-18, 21-13 in 32 minutes.
The match was their fifth encounters of the season, and the Malaysian pair held a 4-1 advantage against the Chinese pair this year, and also led a 5-3 overall career head-to-head record.
Goh/Tan are set to take on another Chinese pair, Li Junhui/Liu Yuchen in the semi-finals. Li Junhui/Liu Yuchen knocked out No. 3 seeds Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia 21-11 and 21-16 on Friday.
In their first career match up, Rio Olympics mixed doubles silver medalists Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying of Malaysia held off a stirring comeback of Anders Skaarup Rasmussen/Sara Thygesen of Denmark in the decider as the Denmark pair came agonizingly from 8-16 to level the score at 19-19. But ultimately Chan/Goh’s experience helped them finish off the match with 21-14, 14-21, 21-19 in 61 minutes.
Chan/Goh will get a chance for revenge against No.1 seeds Ko Sung Hyun/Kim Ha Na of Korea on Saturday after they were defeated by the Korean pair in the semi-finals of last week’s Japan Open.
The Korea Open is a Superseries tournament that offers total prize money of US$600,000 (RM2.477 million).
