BAM, professionals q-final match main focus today
KUALA LUMPUR: The collision of the Badminton of Malaysia’s (BAM) mixed doubles and professional doubles at the quarter-finals of the 2019 Malaysia Masters Perodua badminton championship will be the main focus today.
The meeting of two national representatives would see a match between Goh Soon Huat(he)-Shevon Lai (she), namely, the doubles under BAM and professional doubles, Chan Peng Soon (he)-Goh Liu Ying (she) after both doubles passed the second round yesterday.
The successes of the two doubles also confirmed Malaysia’s advance to the semi-finals at the Axiata Arena, KL Sports City here.
At the second round match yesterday, Soon Huat-Shevon easily trounced Takuro Hoki-Wakana Nagahara of Japan in straight sets 21-13, 21-19 in 32 minutes.
Meanwhile, Peng Soon-Liu Ying were forced to ratchet up their games to beat Lu Kai-Chen Lu of China, 17-21, 21-17, 21-15.
For Shevon, today’s match would surely be the focus of badminton fans and they would give a stiff fight to Peng Soon-Liu Ying who had just snatched the championship at the Thailand Masters last week.
‘’We will give a stiff fight and play much better than today. The pressure will be much higher tomorrow because each side wants to win.
‘’We are enemies on court but we are a team outside although they are already operating independently. To become the top national doubles pair is indeed our target but most importantly is qualifying to the Olympics,’’ she told reporters after the match.
Commenting on the match yesterday, Soon Huat said they did not expect it to be easy to beat the Japanese pair because they were among the best in the world.
Meanwhile, Liu Ying expected an interesting match facing her teammates because they knew each other’s pattern of play and weaknesses.
Peng Soon said the most important thing today would be the strategy that would be used to win.
“We will discuss about strategy tomorrow, we trained together prior to this and they can read our game. Tomorrow, two doubles pair will be in the quarter-finals, so one will surely be in the semi-finals.
‘’This shows the standard of the national mixed doubles is getting better,’’ said Peng Soon. – AFP
