Bali: Malaysia’s World No. 7 men’s singles player – Lee Zii Jia explained that he had no choice but to retire from the 2021 Indonesia Masters first round against Denmark’s Rasmus Gemke on Tuesday.
Lee Zii Jia decided not to continue the match when he trailed 9-11 in the first set.
The 23-year-old posted message below on his social media accounts to explain the reason behind his withdrawal.
“After discussing with my coaches and the teams, I have no choice but to retire from this tournament. My body still needs to recover and prepare for the coming tournaments. It’s sad that I couldn’t make my best condition in the Indonesia Master but I’m thankful for the warm welcome gifts from the Indonesia fans, also tons of encouraging messages from everyone. I’ll keep up my training and get back on court soon. Anyway glad to be back to this gracious country🤟🏻
Selepas berbincang dengan Jurulatih dan pasukan sokongan saya, saya terpaksa akur dengan keputusan untuk undur daripada pertandingan ini memandangkan saya perlu lebih masa untuk pulih semula bagi menghadapi pertandingan yang seterusnya. Saya amat kesali atas kegagalan untuk membuat penampilan terbaik, saya tetap akan berlatih lagi untuk kembali ke gelanggang secepat mungkin dengan wajah yang lebih baik. Juga ingat berucap terima kasih kepada semua penyokong dan peminat saya yang banyak memberi kata kata semangat serta sokongan padu kepada saya. Terutamanya saya ingin mengucapkan ribuan terima kasih kepada peminat Indonesia yang telah menghantar pelbagai buah tangan kepada saya, kemesraan anda semua tetapku ingati 💝.”
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Meanwhile, Malaysia’s World No. 8 mixed doubles pair Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying suffered their third first-round exit in less than a month, after crashing out in the first round of Denmark Open (Oct 20, 2021), HYLO Open (Nov 2, 2021) and now, Indonesia Masters.
Chan/Goh were stunned by World No. 254 Jones Ralfy Jansen/Linda Efler of Germany 13-21, 19-21 on Tuesday.
Goh admitted that she was not happy with their performance in the match.
“Indeed we were not satisfied with our performance in today’s match because we were not at our best. The situation was very different when compared to previous tournaments in Europe,” said Goh.
“We even had to change tactics to suit the situation. We had a lot of opportunities to collect points but it was wasted, instead, we gave the opponents many chances to score points after points. Our game was quite weak today,” added Goh.
Malaysia’s professional men’s doubles, Goh V Shem/Low Juan Shen were also shown the way out in the first round after losing to French pair, Lucas Corvee/Ronan Labar 18-21, 18-21.
However, two other Malaysian mixed doubles pairs, Hoo Pang Ron/Cheah Yee See and Chen Tang Jie/Peck Yen Wei have each confirmed a place in the second round.
Hoo/Cheah advanced after an easy win as their opponents – Yujiro Nishikawa/Saori Ozaki from Japan retired when trailing 2-5 in the first set while Chen/Peck had no trouble beating South Korea’s Seo Seung Jae/Kim Hye Jeong 21-17, 21-13.
Hoo/Cheah will face Jansen/Efler, while Chen/Peck will face top seeds from Thailand, Dechapol Puavaranukroh/Sapsiree Taerattanachai in the second round.
