Auckland: The No. 2 seeds – Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying of Malaysia have made the New Zealand Open final as they overcame Indonesia’s No. 4 seeds Hafiz Faizal/Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja in the mixed doubles semi-finals on Saturday.
Chan/Goh displayed some of their brilliant defensive capabilities while attacking their opponents’ back court and middle court to claim the first set 21-14.
However, both pairs were locked up in a tight second set, in which Chan/Goh eventually prevailed with a cross court smash from Chan Peng Soon to wrap up the game 21-18. The Malaysians will meet another Indonesian pair – No. 5 seeds Praveen Jordan/Melati Daeva Oktavianti on Sunday.
On Friday’s all-Malaysian quarter-final match-up, Chan/Goh proved that they have a slight edge over World No. 20 Tan Kian Meng/Lai Pei Jing with 21-16, 21-11 in a 35-minutes battle.
The battle between these two pairs was a much-anticipated one as both were trying to accumulate enough qualification points for the 2020 Olympics.
Meanwhile, another Malaysian mixed doubles pair Goh Soon Huat/Shevon Lai was stranded in the quarter-finals after losing 14-21, 19-21 to Indonesia’s No. 5 seeds Praveen Jordan/Melati Daeva Oktavianti in 35 minutes.
In men’s doubles, World No. 15 Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong of Malaysia put on one of their best performance of late by seeing off World No. 13 Takuto Inoue/Yuki Kaneko in a grueling 69-minutes battle 21-18, 22-24, 21-12 on Friday to cruise into the final four. Goh/Tan are set to take on World No. 4 Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia next.
In other men’s doubles quarter-final matches, two other Malaysian men’s pairs were forced to concede to two Japanese pairs on Friday, as Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik lost to Takeshi Kamura/Keigo Sonoda 21-17, 15-21, 10-21 while Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi went down to another Japanese pair Hiroyuki Endo/Yuta Watanabe 7-21, 18-21.
