Lucknow: The Indonesian/Malaysian men’s doubles pair of Hendra Setiawan/Tan Boon Heong made a strong start Wednesday in their quest for the 2017 Syed Modi International Badminton Championships title, prevailed against Munawar Mohammed/Vishnura Rajendran of India 21-11, 21-9 in just 16 minutes.
The No. 5 seeds Setiawan/Tan will face another Indian pair Francis Alwin/Kona Tarun in the second round. If they could see off their opponents on Thursday, the duo has a chance to set up a quarter-final showdown with No. 1 seed Mathias Boe/Carsten Mogensen of Denmark.
Malaysia’s Lim Khim Wah/Mohamad Arif Abdul Latif also overcame a stern challenge from Indian shuttlers Utkarsh Arora/Gaurav Deswal with 21-16, 21-13 to set up a second round clash with No. 3 seeds Manu Attri/Reddy B. Sumeeth of India for a spot in the last eight.
In men’s singles, Malaysia’s No. 10 seed Chong Wei Feng enjoyed easy passages to the third round after outlasting Harshit Aggarwal of India 21-11, 21-12 in the first round and beating another Indian player Siddharth Jakhar 21-15, 21-10 in the second round. Chong will play last year’s Hong Kong Open and Bitburger Open runner-up No. 8 seed Sameer Verma of India next.
Another Malaysian men’s singles player Zulfadli Zulkiffli also breezed through to the third round at Syed Modi International to face Misha Zilberman of Israel on Thursday.
Last week’s Malaysia Masters mixed doubles runners-up and No. 6 seeds Goh Soon Huat/Shevon Jemie Lai were not troubled by Dinesh Chaudhry/Lalita Dahiya on Wednesday, winning their first round match 21-6, 21-8 in 24 minutes to meet another Indian pair K. Nandagopal/Mahima Aggarwal in the mixed doubles second round.
