Bali: Malaysia’s women’s doubles pair – Lee Meng Yean/Yap Cheng Wen admitted that they were able to overcome their weaknesses to advance to the second round of the 2021 Indonesia Open.
The pair survived two match-point to beat the Danish pair, Alexandra Boje/Mette Poulsen in a three-set bout with a result of 21-12, 19-21, 26-24 on Wednesday.
Lee told Malaysian media that they learned from the first-round defeat at the hands of German pair Linda Efler/Isabel Lohau in the first round of last week’s Indonesian Masters. This time, they changed their strategy a little bit and did not repeat the same mistake when facing European players who have a physical advantage.
“Our weakness was that we don’t have the strength and when facing tall European pair, they often hit the shuttlecock to the baseline,” said Lee.
“We were not able to return the shuttlecock all the way to our opponent’s baseline and that gave them a chance to attack us.
“Still, we managed to overcome the problem in today’s match and we focused fully on the game plan,” explained Lee.
Lee/Yap will meet Gabriela Stoeva/Stefani Stoeva of Bulgaria on Thursday for a ticket to the quarter-finals.
Two other Malaysian women’s doubles, Vivian Hoo/Lim Chiew Sien and Pearly Tan/Thinaah Muralitharan also made the second round.
Vivian Hoo/Lim Chiew Sien will play No. 3 seeds Jongkolphan Kititharakul/Rawinda Prajongjai of Thailand and Pearly Tan/Thinaah Muralitharan will face Febriana Dwipuji Kusuma/Amalia Cahaya Pratiwi of Indonesia in the second round.
