Contrasting exits for men's pairs

DOUBLES shuttlers Tan Wee Kiong-Hoon Thien How and Mohd Fairuzizuan Mohd Tazari-Mohd Zakry Abdul Latif crashed out from the World Championships in contrasting fashions.

The 11th seeds Wee Kiong-Thien How gave a worthy fight to four-time world champions Cai Yun-Fu Haifeng before going down 19-21, 13-21 in a fast-paced 36 minutes third round match.

Wee Kiong-Thien How had the Olympic champions by their throat in the opening game but muffed it up at 19-19 and allowed to Chinese to regain their confidence to take the opening game.

Wee Kiong said that the outcome could have been different if they would have won the first game and blamed it on their lack of patience towards the end.

“We should have gone for the broke and continued with our attacking game but we got nervous,” said Wee Kiong.

Overall, Wee Kiong was happy that they gave their fancied opponents a run for their money and he hoped to ride on the renewed confidence.

“I have mixed feeling right now. We could have beaten them but I can take comfort that we gave them a good fight,” said Wee Kiong.

“It is my hope that Thien How and I will get more opportunities to compe to overseas so that we can continue to take our game to higher level,” he said.

It was however, a sad end for Fairuzizuan-Zakry who ran out of gas against Japan’s Hiroyuki Endo-Kenichi Hayakawa. They went down 21-23, 7-21 in 34 minutes.

They had hoped to soar high on the first day of Hari Raya but lack of fitness was evident in their straight game defeat yesterday.

After the defeat, Zakry admitted that they would have to shed some kilos if they hoped to go far in the careers.