Women’s singles Soniia Cheah and Lee Ying Ying are gunning for an all Malaysian quarter-final in the Macau Open, but they will have to clear the second round first.
Today, the two Malaysian shuttlers fought hard before clearing the first round.
Seventh seed Soniia, was made to slog in the second game, before chalking up a 21-15, 24-22 win over Taiwan’s Liang Ting Yu, while Ying Ying was forced to claw back from a game down before seeing off Hong Kong’s Cheung Ying Mei 20-22, 21-12, 23-21.
Soniia is up against Sim Yu Jin of South Korea next while Ying Ying faces third seed, Cheung Ngan Yi of Hong Kong.
Ying Ying said: “I didn’t play well and started panicking in the first game. Thankfully I regained my rhythm and composure after that.
“Of course, it would be ideal to play Soniia in the quarter-finals but I have to make it past the second round first.”
Soniia, who wants to end the year on a high, said: “It’s not easy, I have to be at my best if I want to go far in this tournament. After this I have one more tournament and the draw is not really in my favour.”
The other Malaysians who cleared the first round were men’s doubles Chooi Kah Ming-Low Juan Shen, Goh Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin Rumsani, Chen Tang Jie-Man Wei Chong, Mohd Arif Latif-Nur Azriyn Ayub and former Asian Games gold medallist Tan Boon Heong, who now partners South Korea’s Kim Sa Rang.
Malaysian men’s singles players, Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin and Chong Wei Feng also made it past the opening round.
It was the end of the road, however, for women’s singles, S. Kisona, who lost 21-12, 21-15 to Japan’s Haruko Suzuki.
