Hong Kong: Malaysia’s men’s doubles No. 1 seeds Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong eased into the second round of Hong Kong Open after calmly clinched their first round match against Danes Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen 21-14 and 21-15 in 41 minutes on Wednesday.
Goh/Tan now has the chance to get revenge on Liu Cheng/Zhang Nan of China in the second round after losing to the Chinese pair in the first round of the China Open last week.
Also advance to the second round were Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi, who overcame a one-set deficit in a hard fought opening match to upset No. 5 seeds Mads Conrad-Peterson/Mads Pieler Kolding of Denmark 21-19, 22-24, 21-18. Ong/Ee will take on South Korea’s scratch pair Kim Jae Hwan/Yoo Yeon Seong who dispatched former World No. 1 Koo Kien Keat/Tan Boon Heong 21-19, 21-8.
Malaysia’s independent pair Lim Khim Wah/Ong Jian Guo also played brilliantly on Wednesday to beat No. 7 seeds and the 2016 All England champions Vladimir Ivanov/Ivan Sozonov of Russian 23-21, 21-11 in 39 minutes. Lim/Ong will meet hosts’ pair Law Cheuk Him/Reginald Lee Chun Hei next.
No. 6 seeds Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo who won the China Open last Sunday, were struggling in their first round match after going down 13-21, 21-16, 16-21 to Lu Kai/Zheng Siwei of China in 46 minutes.
In the men’s singles competition, former Malaysian national team player Chong Wei Feng stunned spectators at the Hong Kong Coliseum by outlasting the Denmark Open Superseries champion and No. 7 seed Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk of Thailand 18-21, 21-19, 21-11 in a match that lasted for 60 minutes.
Awaiting Chong on Thursday is H.S. Prannoy of India who also caused an upset by beating the Koran Open champion Qiao Bin of China 21-16, 21-18. Two other Malaysian men’s singles players Iskandar Zulkarnain and Zulfadli Zulkifli have fizzled out in the first round.
In women’s doubles competition, Vivian Hoo/Woon Khe Wei of Malaysia had it easy against Leung Sze Lok/Wu Yi Ting of Hong Kong, winning 21-11, 21-12 to set up their second round encounter against No. 3 seeds Kamilla Rytter Juhl/Christinna Pedersen of Denmark on Thursday. Chow Mei Kuan/Lee Meng Yean of Malaysia showed great resilience to fight from back from a set down before succumbing to Bao Yixin/Yu Xiaohan 21-12, 16-21, 18-21.
