Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia’s No. 2 men’s singles player Lee Zii Jia who lost to Jan Jorgensen of Denmark in the first round of Swiss Open two weeks ago, lived up to expectations and capped off a brilliant performance to beat former Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) player and No. 2 seed Chong Wei Feng 21-9, 21-18 in 31 minutes to advance into the 2018 Malaysia National Championships final on Saturday.
The No. 3 seed Lee Zii Jia will face No. 6 seed Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin in the final.
Zulkarnain however had to dig deep to storm back from a set down to beat unseeded Satheishtharan Ramachandran 19-21, 21-7, 21-12 in 51 minutes.
In women’s singles competition, Kisona Selvaduray proved she has a good chance of being listed in Malaysia’s Uber Cup squad in May after she defeated the 2015 World Junior champion Goh Jin Wei 21-15, 21-14 in the semi-finals.
However, the Seremban-born Kisona remained humble and focused and didn’t think too much about her chances in the Malaysian Uber Cup team.
“I didn’t think too much about Uber Cup. I am working hard all the time, and let’s take it one game at a time,” said Kisona.
She is set to take on No. 1 seed Soniia Cheah in the final.
“I am going to play Soniia in the final, she is an experienced player, and I feel really excited,” added Kisona.
In men’s doubles, Malaysia’s unseeded men’s doubles pair Mohd Arif Abdul Latif/Nur Mohd Azriyn Ayup pulled off a huge upset to beat No. 2 seeds Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi 21-17, 18-21, 21-11 in 55 minutes. Abdul Latif/Ayup will face the Rio Olympic men’s doubles silver medalists Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong in the final.
Goh/Tan outlasted No. 3 seeds Chooi Kah Ming/Low Juan Shen 21-13, 23-21 in another semi-finals.
