Seoul: World No. 28 Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin of Malaysia overcame a one set deficit in a hard fought match to beat World No. 9 Angus Ng Ka Long of Hong Kong 13-21, 21-14, 21-17 in 48 minutes to take the Korea Open opener on Wednesday.
Zainuddin will take on Qiao Bin of China on Thursday. Qiao defeated World No. 7 Chou Tien Chen of Taiwan 21-14, 21-18 in another men’s singles first round competition.
Nevertheless, Malaysia’s Goh Soon Huat couldn’t end his losing streak against Hans-kristian Vittinghus of Denmark when he lost his third encounter against the Dane 15-21, 12-21 in the men’s singles opening match.
Malaysia’s independent men’s doubles pair, Hoon Thien How/Teo Kok Siang was also stretched to the limit by Lee Sang Won/Park Kyung Hoon of South Korea before edging a 21-19, 19-21, 22-20 win over the Korean pair.
Rio Olympic men’s doubles silver medalists Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong prevailed over Chen Hung Ling/Wang Chi-Lin of Taiwan, 22-20 and 21-14 in the opening match to set up a second round meeting with Peter Briggs/Tom Wolfenden of England.
Vivian Hoo Kah Mun/Woon Khe Wei who made the quarter-final in Rio but bowed out in the quarter-finals of Japan Open last week, went down to Go Ah Ra/Kim Hyang Im of South Korea 9-21, 21-13 and 18-21 after a hard fought battle.
