Germany: The freshly reunited Malaysian mixed doubles partners Tan Aik Quan/Lai Pei Jing gave their off-and-on partnership a boost on Wednesday when they recovered from a slow start in the first set (by rescuing two set points) to battle past fifth seeds Sudket Prapakamol/Saralee Thoungthongkam of Thailand 25-23, 21-19 in 47 minutes. Tan/Lai will play Sam Magee/Chloe Magee of Ireland on Friday.
“I couldn’t believe we beat them, it’s definitely a good start for us in 2015,” said Pei Jing.
In women’s doubles, eight seeds Vivian Hoo and Woon Khe Wei fought off a valiant challenge from Japanese pair Ayane Kurihara/Naru Shinoya to prevail 21-18, 11-21, 21-18 in 66 minutes.
Meanwhile, Malaysian men’s singles experienced mixed results at the German Open on Thursday when Goh Soon Huat fought from one set down to outlast Christian Lind Thomsen of Denmark 12-21,21-12,21-17; another Malaysian men’s singles player Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin was in a neck-and-neck race with Korean player Lee Dong Keun towards the end of the first set. Iskandar had his chances but he just couldn’t close out the first set and ended up losing to Lee Dong Keun 22-24. Iskandar appeared demoralized in his first set loss, to allow Lee Dong Keun waltzed to a 21-12 win in the second set.
Men’s singles top seed Jan O Jorgensen of Denmark eased past Wang Tzu Wei of Taiwan 21-19, 21-19 and reigining women’s singles world champion Carolina Marin got past Petya Nedelcheva of Bulgaria 21-11, 21-19 in 28 minutes.
