National men’s doubles shuttlers Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik got past their Indonesian rivals today to set up a semi-final clash with top Indian pair Chirag Shetty-Satwiksairaj Rankireddy in the China Masters tomorrow.
In the quarter-final match tonight, the Malaysian world No 2 pair took 39 minutes to outplay the 16th ranked Indonesians Leo Rolly Carnando-Bagas Maulana before winning 21-19, 21-18 at the Shenzhen Arena.
The match was the first encounter between the pairs in an international meet. It was a revenge of sorts for the Malaysian duo as the Indonesians had knocked out their compatriots Man Wei Chong-Tee Kai Wun in the quarter-final yesterday.
Although Aaron-Wooi Yik, the two-time Olympics bronze medallists, have the edge over the Indian pair on paper after having beaten them 12 times in 15 encounters, the Malaysians must be wary of Chiraq-Satwiksairaj who have been performing well recently.
With Aaron-Wooi Yik’s victory, two Malaysian pairs will be in tomorrow’s semi-finals. The other will be world mixed doubles champions Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei who have the daunting task of playing China‘s world No 1 pair Feng Yan Zhe-Huang Dong Ping.
Men’s doubles pair Goh Soon Huat-Nur Izzuddin Rumsani and women’s doubles duo Pearly Tan-M Thinaah were knocked out of the championships earlier today.
For Aaron-Wooi Yik, their performance in Shenzhen has been a welcome relief for the Malaysian coaches who had expressed concern over their dip in form after their first-round defeat to Ben Lane-Sean Vendy of England at last week’s Hong Kong Open and their third-round loss at the World Championships before that.
However, the Malaysians came back strongly to avenge their defeat by sending the Englishmen home and beating them in the second round yesterday.
Aaron-Wooi Yik, who have won a personal-best three titles this year, are part of the youth and sports ministry’s RM20 million Road to Gold project aimed at winning a gold medal at the 2028 Olympic Games in the US.
The champions in the doubles categories at the World Tour Super 750 China Masters will take home US$92,500 (RM387,624), the runners-up US$43,750 (RM183,336), semi-finalists US$17,500 (RM73,334) and quarter-finalists US$4,062 (RM17,021).
