National singles shuttler Justin Hoh staged a major upset at the Hong Kong Open today by defeating the much higher-ranked French player Toma Junior Popov to advance to the second round.
The 21-year-old, who is ranked world No 39, defeated the two-time European Championship silver medallist 21-12, 21-19 in 40 minutes.
Popov is No 13 in the Badminton World Federation’s rankings.
Justin’s win sets up an all-Malaysian last-16 tie with his senior Leong Jun Hao, who beat Lee Zii Jia earlier today.
Justin’s performance has been improving since he finished as runner-up at the Macau Open last month.
In the qualifiers yesterday, he defeated Tharun Mannepalli, another higher-ranked player from India, 21-23, 21-13, 21-18.
Separately, both Malaysian mixed doubles pairs vying in the tournament cleared their first round matches today.
Married couple Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Jemie Lai came from behind to defeat Taiwan’s Ling Bing Wei-Lin Jhih Yun in three games of 13-21, 23-21, 21-8 to move into the last 16.
Tomorrow, the world No 8 pair will take on their juniors Hoo Pang Ron-Cheng Su Yin who defeated Ukraine’s Oleksii Titov-Yevheniia Kantemyr 21-14, 21-14 in their opener.
