KUALA LUMPUR: National men’s doubles professional shuttler Goh V Shem could not hide his utter disappointment with a couple of calls and decisions by the match umpire after he and partner Tan Wee Kiong bowed out of the All England at the quarter-final stage late yesterday (Friday).
The 2016 Rio Olympic Games silver medallist explained that the service umpire’s constant warning and reprimanding on how they executed their service caused them to momentarily lose focus, so much so they ended up going down rather tamely to World No 9 Muhammad Rian Ardianto-Fajar Alfian of Indonesia.
“Today (Friday) there were a couple of calls and decisions made by the service umpire which disrupted our match rhythm. I feel that they just have not found the right rules and regulations with regards to execution of service.
“Usually after the umpire gives out a warning I will take my service slightly lower, though during the match against the Indonesians the umpire kept acknowledging us and there was nothing much we could do about it.
“I am not trying to say that we lost because of the service. But the match umpire was just too much and went too far,” he said when contacted.
In the quarter-final encounter, the World No 14 ranked Malaysian pair, who were the favourites to advance, were clearly not in their element and were somewhat bothered throughout the match which only lasted for 39 minutes as they lost 22-20, 21-12 at Muhammad Rian-Fajar’s hands.
Their latest setback lengthens their All England quarter-finals jinx for the third consecutive year after enduring a similar fate last year and the year before last.
In fact, this latest result only adds to the woes of the 2019 Thailand Masters champions who went out as early as the first round itself at the Indonesia Masters in January.
-ENDS-