KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 7 — Up-and-coming young national men’s doubles pair, Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik were on cloud nine after demolishing ‘big brothers’ Goh V Shem-Tan Wee Kiong at the 2020 Malaysia Masters tournament at Axiata Arena, here today.

It was a close fight and every point matters but the younger and faster pair eventually prevailed over their seniors, V Shem-Wee Kiong in the first round 21-19, 21-18.

“Today’s performance was very satisfying. V Shem-Wee Kiong are our seniors, we have been training together every day. We even know each other’s game plan. So whoever plays better wins,” Aaron told the media after the match.

The world eighth-ranked duo is expected to meet either Indonesia’s Marcus Fernaldi Gideon-Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo or Lin Chia Yu-Yang Ming-Tse of Taiwan in the second round.

Aaron hoped that they could maintain their momentum and display better performance to challenge their opponents.

 “We have to be focused because it’s not easy to beat the world number one pair. Indeed, we want to win, regardless of whether it is Marcus-Kevin or Lin-Yang.

“We have met Marcus-Kevin three times and they were fiery matches which inevitably dragged into the rubber-set. But we hope we can pull a strong challenge against them once again,” Aaron said.

Meanwhile, Wooi Yik admitted that winning the first round against the seniors had boosted their confidence to play better in the tournament.

Sharing the same sentiments with Aaron, he noted that if they have to face the Indonesian pair, they would certainly fight till the end as the stakes are high.

Also making it to the second round were Ong Yew Sin-Teo Ee Yi, who had just been dropped by the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) recently.

The duo performed brilliantly to beat the world number 12th pair, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty of India in 21-15, 18-21, 21-15.

The Malaysians, ranked 19th in the world are scheduled to meet either eighth seeds, Cheng Cheng-Zhou Hao Dong of China, or the unseeded pair of Jones Ralfy Jansen-Peter Kaesbauer of Germany. — Bernama