China, Viking threats await national shuttlers

By Vikneswaran Raman

PARIS: The Malaysian badminton camp continued their sterling run as all the national shuttlers in action yesterday secured victories to advance to the next round.

However, they will face tougher challenges on Friday, with two doubles pairs up against China’s formidable opponents and Lee Zii Jia facing a prominent Denmark “Viking” in the men’s singles.

The stellar performance at Porte de La Chapelle Arena began with Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah making history as the first Malaysian women’s doubles pair to reach the Olympic semifinals.

The world-ranked 12th pair ousted the bronze medallists from the previous edition, Kim So Yeong-Kong Hee Yong of South Korea, with a score of 21-12, 21-13 in the quarterfinals. However, they will face a tough challenge against the world number one pair from China, Chen Qing Chen-Jia Yi Fan, today (afternoon in Malaysia).

According to their head-to-head record, Pearly-Thinaah have only won once in seven encounters against the Olympic silver medallists. They put up a strong fight against them in Group A on Saturday but eventually lost 17-21, 20-22.

Men’s doubles pair Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik, bronze medallists at Tokyo 2020, have a chance to change the colour of their medal after defeating Hangzhou Asian Games champions Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty of India 13-21, 21-14, 21-16 in the quarter-finals.

The 2022 world champions, however, will be up against the world’s number one doubles pair from China, Liang Wei Keng-Wang Chang, who defeated them 22-24, 14-21 in the group stage on Monday.

Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia plays a shot against Spain’s Pablo Abian in their men’s singles badminton group stage match. Photo: Arun SANKAR / AFP

Meanwhile, Zii Jia overcame the strong support of the home crowd to eliminate France’s top seed, Toma Junior Popov, with a straight-sets victory of 21-13, 24-22 in the round of 16.

This achievement surpasses his performance at the Tokyo 2020 Games, where he lost to China’s legend Chen Long in the round of 16.

The 2021 All England champion will face world number three from Denmark, Anders Antonsen, in the quarter-finals tomorrow. Antonsen has won five of eight encounters against Zii Jia.

At Invalides, Malaysia’s archery challenge ended after the last representative, Nurul Azreena Mohamad Fazil, was eliminated in the 1/32 elimination round of the women’s individual event, losing 0-6 to Elif Berra Gokkir from Turkiye.

The country’s top golfer, Gavin Green, began his campaign in the men’s event at Le Golf National with a three-over-par 74, tying for 53rd place with Kiradech Aphibarnrat of Thailand and Nico Echavarria of Colombia.

In sailing, which started yesterday at Marseille Marina, Khairulnizam Mohd Afendy placed 27th out of 43 participants with 47 penalty points after two rounds in the men’s single-handed dinghy ILCA 7 event.

In the women’s single-handed dinghy ILCA 6 event, Nur Shazrin Mohamad Latif finished Race One in 19th place out of 43 participants, while Race Two was postponed to today.

Gavin, Khairulnizam, and Nur Shazrin will continue their campaigns in the next rounds on Friday. — BERNAMA