KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 12 — The mixed doubles category of the Malaysia Open badminton championship, is set to have a new champion for the first time since 2018, ending world number one Zheng Si Wei-Huang Ya Qiong’s domination.
This is after South Korean pair Kim Won Ho-Jeong Na Eun dashed the four-time champions Zheng-Huang’s dreams of adding another feather to their cap with an 11-21, 21-18, 21-17 victory in the quarter-finals at Axiata Arena today.
Speaking to reporters after the match, the three-time world champions Zheng-Huang, who were disappointed at losing the title, promised to return stronger in the next edition to wrest back the crown in the World Tour Super 1000 tournament.
“Quite disappointed, unable to win again, because for the past few years, we did very well in Malaysia, but we cannot control the results. We need to review more videos and prepare better against the Korean pair in the upcoming matches.
“In a positive way, this defeat will help us a lot to identify our mistakes and weaknesses, so we can work to improve it with few more months before the Paris 2024 Olympics in July,” the duo said after suffering their third defeat in five matches against the Korean pair.
Apart from winning the Malaysia Open title four times in a row in 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2023 (the 2020 and 2021 editions were cancelled due to Covid-19), the Chinese pair also lifted the Malaysia Masters title in 2020 and 2022 to make Axiata Arena as their favourite hunting ground.
After downing the reigning champions, world number seven Kim-Jeong aims to continue their fine run towards their career’s biggest achievement to lift the title. Their previous best achievement was winning the World Tour Super 500, Thailand Open last year.
“This year is totally a new year, so we wanted to start afresh with new challenges. We studied the Chinese pair; they are (the) world number one so we can beat them if we want to aim big.
“We want to emerge as Malaysia Open champions this time, but we are now only in the semi-finals. We do not want to think too far, step by step,” they said.
In the semi-finals, Kim-Jeong will take on Singaporeans Terry Hee-Jessica Tan, who stunned 2021 world champions Dechapol Puavaranukroh-Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Thailand 21-16, 21-19 earlier.
The 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games champions are also looking for a career’s highest point, with their best achievement in the World Tour by winning the Super 500 status India Open in 2022.
Hee and Tan also aim to create history as Singapore’s first-ever mixed doubles representative to feature in the Olympics at the Paris 2024.
“We are very happy to be in our first ever Super 1000 tournament semi-finals. After the game, we both were still in disbelief; we were very happy with our performance and how we challenged our opponents.
“Now we are in this semi-finals, this will increase our chances for Paris. The goal is to win as many matches as possible to collect more points,” the married pair said.
Another semi-final is set to see a clash between second seeds Yuta Watanabe-Arisa Higashino of Japan and China’s Jiang Zhen Bang-Wei Ya Xin.
— Bernama
