Bali: Malaysia’s World No. 7 Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik pulled off a huge upset on Friday by defeating the 2020 Tokyo Olympics men’s doubles gold medalist – Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin in the 2021 Indonesia Masters quarter-finals.
Chia/Soh had never beaten the Taiwanese pair in their three previous meetings. The Malaysian pair was playing with solid offense and defense, especially Soh Wooi Yik stepped up his game and was very quick at the net to win in straight-set 21-13, 21-15.
The Olympic bronze medalists from Malaysia will meet Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi of Japan in the semi-finals after the Japanese pair beat Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen of Denmark 19-21, 21-14, 21 -19. Chia/Soh had played Hoki/Kobayashi three times in the last one and a half months, and they only won one out of the three meetings. The last time they played each other was in the Thomas Cup Group D tie between Malaysia and Japan, where Chia/Soh lost 13-21, 13-21.
Chia and Soh both showed their determination to do well in the semi-finals by posting messages below on their social media pages after Friday’s victory.
“We made it to SEMI FINAL! Here we go! 🤞 💪🏻🇲🇾
Soh Wooi Yik 苏伟译
#FFEYWANGU #KOG ”
“为了梦想继续努力🐯
#不留遗憾
(Keep working hard for the dream, no regrets – translated by BadmintonPlanet.com) ”
Malaysia’s other men’s pair, World No. 14 Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi also made it to the semi-finals after beating compatriot Gho Sze Fei/Nur Izzuddin 21-13, 18-21, 21-18.
Ong/Teo are scheduled to meet the No. 1 seeds Marcus Fernaldi/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo of Indonesia who beat their juniors – Pramudya Kusumawardana/Yeremia Erich Yonche Yacob Rambitan 22-20, 21-17 in the quarterfinals.
In men’s singles, World No. 1 Kento Momota has slowly gotten back his form by seeing off World No. 13 Rasmus Gemke of Denmark 21-15, 21-5 to set up a semi-final encounter with World No. 4 Chou Tien Chen of Taiwan, while World No. 3 Anders Antonsen of Denmark will meet World No. 15 Kidambi Srikanth of India in another men’s semi-finals.
Another Tokyo Olympics champions also crashed out on Friday, when women’s doubles World No. 19 Puttita Supajirakul/Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Thailand beat Indonesia’s Olympic gold medalists Greysia Polii/Apriyani Rahayu 18-21, 21-13, 21-19 in 83 minutes.
