Auckland: Mixed doubles No. 3 seeds Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying guaranteed their places in the last four of the 2016 New Zealand Open Grand Prix Gold Badminton with a straight-sets win over Indonesia’s Hafiz Faisal/Shella Devi Aulia on Friday.
The Malaysia’s World No. 13 who are bidding for their first title in 2016, dished out a one-sided punishment to the Indonesians in a 21-12, 21-11 victory at North Shore Events Centre, taking their career record over Faisal/Aulia to 2-0.
Chan/Goh will have a chance to exact revenge on top-seeded Ko Sung Hyun/Kim Ha Na of Korea in the semi-finals after their last two consecutive defeats by the Koreans.
In the men’s competition, No. 16 seed Soo Teck Zhi continued his stellar badminton in New Zealand when he showed resilience in his comeback victory over the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympics gold medalist Shi Yuqi of China, winning 11-21, 22-20, 21-14 in an one hour battle. Soo will play another Chinese shuttler, No. 13th seed Huang Yuxiang in the semi-finals.
Huang, on the other hand, stormed into the semifinals with an upset win over world No 13 South Korean Son Wan Ho. Huang came back from a 10-15 down in the second set to beat Son 21-19, 21-19.
“I became more aggressive when I was trailing in the second set, and that worked out well for me,” said Huang.
Riichi Takeshita of Japan will take on Vietnamese and No. 9 seed Nguyen Tien Minh in another men’s singles semi-finals on Saturday.
