Paris: Malaysia’s World No. 7 Lee Zii Jia has moved into the 2024 Paris Olympics semi-finals as he put up a strong showing to tame World No. 3 Anders Antonsen of Denmark 21-17, 21-15 in the men’s singles quarterfinals on Friday.
Lee was very active and patient facing Antonsen, who is also his good friend. Lee’s defense was strong, forcing Antonsen to lift, which also caused Antonsen to make a lot of bound shots due to the drift inside the stadium.
Full match of Lee Zii Jia vs. Anders Antonsen in the 2024 Paris Olympics quarterfinals:
Lee will face reigning World Champions Kunlavut Vitidsarn in the semi-finals. Lee (Malaysia), Vitidsarn (Thailand), Loh Kean Yew (Singapore), and Lee Cheuk Yiu (Hong Kong) were training together in Singapore preparing for the Tokyo Olympics a few weeks ago and now two out of four of the players who trained together made it to the semi-finals. They must have had some really fantastic sessions when they were in Singapore.
For Vitidsarn, the World No. 8 player really put on a show on Friday, playing with fast speed, and strong counterattacks, able to pull off an upset to beat heavy favorite and World No. 1 Shi Yuqi of China. Somehow, Shi who won the India Open, French Open, Singapore Open, and Indonesia Open heading to the Olympics, got off to a slow start on Friday against Vitidsarn. He was slow to react to Vitidsarn’s tempo which ended up losing 12-21, 10-21.
In the bottom half, defending champion Viktor Axelsen of Denmark could get a chance to make the final in two consecutive Olympics if he could overcome Lakshya Sen of India in the semi-finals. Axelsen defeated Loh Kean Yew 21-9, 21-17, while Sen saw off Chou Tien-Chen 19-21, 21-15, 21-12 in the quarterfinals.
The men’s doubles semi-finals saw defending champions Lee Yang/Wang Chi-lin of Taiwan setting up a final clash against World No. 1 pair Liang Wei Keng/Wang Chang of China. Lee/Wang beat World No. 2 Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen of Denmark 18-21, 21-17, 21-10 in the semi-finals, while Liang Weikeng/Wang Chang also needed 3 sets to beat Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia 21-19, 15-21, 21-17.
Meanwhile, team China has already guaranteed a gold medal in women’s doubles when two Chinese pairs – Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan, and Liu Shengshu/Tan Ning will set up an all-Chinese battle in the women’s doubles final.
World No. 1 Chen/Jia got the better of World No. 12 Pearly Tan/Thinaah Muralitharan of Malaysia 21-12, 18-21, 21-15 in the semi-finals, while World No. 3 Liu Shengshu/Tan Ning won 21-16, 21-19 over World No. 4 Nami Matsuyama/Chiharu Shida of Japan in the last four.
