Bali: Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia who defeated Kunlavut Vitidsarn of Thailand in their first Group B match on Wednesday, will face the same opponent again in the 2021 BWF World Tour Finals semi-finals on Saturday.
The second-seeded Lee ended the group stage with his third consecutive victory after beating India’s Kidambi Srikanth 21-19, 21-14 at the Bali International Convention Center, Indonesia on Friday.
The 2021 All-England champion from Malaysia said the success of advancing to the semi-finals has boosted his confidence to try to make it to the finals for the first time in the season-ending tournament which offered a total cash prize of USD $ 1.5 million (RM6.36 million).
“Since the beginning of this tournament, my goal was to advance to the semi-finals and now I have achieved it,” said Lee.
“Hopefully, I can maintain my momentum and be more confident to make the final. That is my next goal,” added Lee.
Commenting on his match against Srikanth, Lee told reporters that it was an intense match. Fortunately, he was able to avoid simple mistakes and to control his emotions, which worked out well for him.
In the last Group B men’s doubles action, Malaysia’s 3/4 seeds Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi went down to No. 2 seeds Takuro Hoki and Yugo Kobayashi 19-21, 21-12, 10-21 on Friday. But the Malaysian pair earned a chance to exact revenge on Saturday when they were drawn to play the same opponents in the semi-finals.
Malaysia’s World No. 9 mixed doubles pair, Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying also advanced to the semi-finals, and was drawn to take on World No. 2 Dechapol Puavaranukroh/Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Thailand on Saturday.
