Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian badminton superstar Lee Chong Wei who is bidding for a 12th title at Malaysia Open, has an easy than expected encounter with Japanese player Kazumasa Sakai in the opener on Tuesday, crushing the unseeded Japanese 21-13, 21-10 to make it to the second round.
Lee will take on Lee Hyun-Il of Korea on Thursday after the 38-year-old South Korean secured his first-round victory against Suppanyu Avihingsanon of Thailand 21-18, 21-13.
“I am satisfied with my performance today. First round is always tricky as the players have to get use to the drift, and the environment in the stadium,” said Lee.
“I need to stay focus because young players are trying to prove themselves. You might have seen what happened to Chen Long. The drift and the condition of the stadium could impact a player’s performance, ” added Lee.
Meanwhile, Malaysia’s unseeded Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi created the biggest upset in the men’s doubles category by knocking out second seeds Mathias Boe/Carsten Mogensen from Denmark 21-17, 18-21, 21-13 to advance to the second round.
“I didn’t expect to be able to beat top men’s doubles pair like Boe and Mogensen. Support from the crowd definitely boosted our confidence level and helped us won the match,” added Teo.
Ong/Teo will face the winners between Hiroyuki Endo/Yuta Watanabe of Japan and Berry Angriawan/Hardianto Hardianto of Indonesia on Thursday.
Also enter the second round were Malaysia’s top pair of Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong who needed only 30 minutes to beat Tinn Isriyanet/Kittisak Namdash of Thailand, 21-15, 21-10. Goh/Tan are very likely to play No. 3 seeds Liu Cheng/Zhang Nan of China in the next round.
Unfortunately, Malaysia’s top three mixed doubles pairs including Goh Soon Huat/Shevon Lai, Tan Kian Meng/Lai Pei Jing and Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying were all eliminated in the first round.
