It’s a double shutdown for men’s pair Ong Yew Sin-Teo Ee Yi and mixed doubles Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai in the quarter-finals of the China Open.
World No 23 Yew Sin-Ee Yi failed in their bid to press the advantage in the race to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as they went down fighting to third seeds Li Junhui-Liu Yuchen of China 21-16, 20-22, 20-22 in Changzhou yesterday.
The national No 3 had looked good in the opening stages as they combined well with Ee Yi controlling the net to take the first game.
But their concentration wavered in the second game to allow former world champions Junhui-Yuchen to claw back the second game 22-20.
In the deciding rubber, the tired legs of the Malaysian pair eventually gave way as despite saving a match point, they were unable to prevent their world No. 3 opponents from sealing the win.
It is a tough defeat for Yew Sin-Ee Yi as they are currently No. 27 in the Olympic qualification and ranked behind compatriots Goh V Shem-Tan Wee Kiong (No. 13) and Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik (No. 16).
Only the top 16 pairs earn their spots for the Olympics and a country can only have two pairs if both are ranked in the top eight.
Yew Sin-Ee Yi can, however, draw some positives from their performances this week after battling past South Korea’s Kim Gi-jung-Lee Yong-dae and Denmark’s world No. 8 Kim Astrup-Anders Skaarup Rasmussen in the earlier rounds.
In an earlier match, world No. 11 Soon Huat-Shevon did themselves no favour after putting up an error-strewn performance to lose to Thailand’s world No 4 Dechapol Puavaranukroh-Sapsiree Taerattanachai 17-21, 16-21.
“I wasn’t in my best condition and we were making a lot of mistakes in the first game because we were trying a bit too hard,” said Soon Huat.
“I think we got our tactics right and we saw an opportunity to make a comeback but the gap was just too big.”
Shevon said: “I think we tried our best and we really gave the Thai pair a hard time. I believe if we had taken our chances well, we could have done better.”
It is still a positive week for the pair who have struggled for form especially with Soon Huat suffering a series of injuries earlier this year.
But the pair definitely need to be more consistent, starting with the Korean Open next week if they hope to improve on their current rank of No. 21 in the Olympic qualification.