Auckland: The Malaysia team experienced mixed results in the round three of New Zealand Open on Thursday as the team had several wins and losses.
In men’s singles competition, 12th seed Mohamad Arif Abdul Latif pulled off an upset win against 2nd seed Vincent Wong Wing Ki of Hong Kong by winning 21-17, 14-21, 22-20 in 68 minutes. Another Malaysian men’s singles shuttler Goh Soon Huat also stunned 4th seed Indonesian Dionysius Hayom Rumbaka 21-17, 21-17 in 50 minutes. Despite fighting really hard, Malaysia’s No. 2 men’s singles player Chong Wei Feng went down to top seed Hsu Jen Hao of Taiwan 21-16, 6-21, 21-18 in a match that lasted 70 minutes. Former world junior champion Zulfadli Zulkiffli was also sent packing by Qiao Bin of China losing 7-21, 26-24, 14-21.
Malaysian men’s doubles pair Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong managed to ease past He Jiting/Yu Xiaoyu 21-11, 21-14 in just 23 minutes on Thursday. Meanwhile, independent men’s doubles pair Hoon Thien How/Lim Khim Wah who just singed a RM 1 million endorsement deal few weeks ago, got the better of Japanese Keiichiro Matsui/Koshun Miura 21-16, 21-16.
Interestingly, all eyes were on Thailand player Bodin Issara on Thursday as he returned from a near two-year suspension for fighting at the 2013 Canadian Open. The Thai doubles expert is playing in his first tournament on return from the suspension after an incident that went viral around the world and shocked the badminton community.
The day started well enough as he and partner Nipitphon Puangpuapech won a thrilling match against Hee Chun Mak and Kok Siang Teo (Malaysia). That delight was short lived though as the Thai’s were beaten in the round of 16 by Huang Kaixiang and Zheng Si Wei (China) in straight games.
Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying’s winning streak were ended by Indonesia’s mixed doubles pair Fran Kurniawan/Komala Dewi on Thursday when they lost in the round three of mixed doubles 21-14, 21-23, 14-21.
