KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 20 ― Inconsistency has again proven to be the bane of national men’s doubles shuttlers Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik.
The fifth-seeded Malaysians, who scored a stunning quarter-final win over 2020 Tokyo Olympic gold medallists Lee Yang-Wang Chi-Lin of Taiwan, fell 18-21, 21-19, 17-21 to Japan’s Takuro Hoki-Yugo Kobayashi in the semi-finals of the Indonesia Masters at the Bali International Convention Centre in Bali today.
This is Tokyo Olympic bronze medallists and fifth seeds Aaron-Wooi Yik’s second straight loss lost to Hoki-Kobayashi, having also gone down to the Japanese pair in the group stage of the Thomas Cup in Aarhus, Denmark last month.
“I think with how we played today, we are quite satisfied with our performance although we lost. Only during the rubber game, we were tied at 13-all before they opened up a big lead (as) we may have lost our focus a bit. I think we have to make changes on that (inconsistency) issue,” he told the BWF media after the hard-fought 63-minute last-four match.
Yesterday, Aaron-Wooi Yik marched into the semi-finals in style by downing Lee Yang-Chi-Lin 21-13, 21-15 in the last eight.
Aaron said that although their target was to qualify for the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour Finals in Bali from Dec 1-15, it would not distract them from trying to do well in next week’s Indonesia Open (Nov 23-28) that will also be held in Bali.
“We really want to qualify for the World Tour Finals but we are not putting too much pressure on ourselves. So, we hope that in the Indonesia Open we can perform as well as we want to,” he added.
Aaron-Wooi Yik are currently placed 14th in the BWF World Tour Finals ranking with 17,400 points, although that is set to change at the conclusion of the Indonesia Masters.
Only the top eight will qualify for the BWF World Tour Finals, which offers a total purse of US$1.5 million (about RM6.27 million).
Meanwhile, it was the end of the road for Malaysia in the Indonesia Masters, which is a Super 750 category tournament, after the professional pair of Ong Yew Sin-Teo Ee Yi went down fighting 21-18, 17-21, 11-21 to world number one Marcus Fernaldi Gideon-Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo of Indonesia in the other men’s doubles semi-final clash. ― Bernama
