PETALING JAYA: Chow Mei Kuan-Lee Meng Yean are on a two-pronged mission when the Toyota Thailand Open gets under way at the Impact Arena in Bangkok today.
The world No. 14 have set their sights on avenging last week’s defeat to South Korea’s world No. 9 Chang Ye-na-Kim Hye-rin in a potential quarter-finals rematch.
If they succeed, it would see them reach their first semi-finals since coming in runners-up at the Indian Open in March 2019.
Mei Kuan-Meng Yean head into the second leg on the back of their encouraging performance last week where they put up a gallant fight before going down 20-22,21-19,11-21 to the South Koreans in a 84-minute battle.
Meng Yean believes things could have gone differently had they secured the first game.
“We had our chances but failed to make it count, ” said Meng Yean.
“We tried not to dwell too much on it, otherwise it would affect us emotionally.
“We’ve learned our mistakes and there were many positives to take from last week. It will help us to better prepare for this week’s Open.
“One of the aspects of our game we would like to improve on is to keep up with long rallies. We need our fitness condition to be tip-top.”
With a more favourable draw this week, they will fancy their chances to reach the last eight at least.
Mei Kuan-Meng Yean are expected to overcome their two opening hurdles against Canada’s Rachel Honderich-Kristen Tsai and Australia’s Setyana Mapasa-Gronya Somerville with ease.
Mapasa-Somerville received a bye to the second round following the withdrawal of world No. 2 Mayu Matsumoto-Wakana Nagahara.
The duo will also have an extra reason to do well as they are well-placed to qualify as one of eight pairs for the World Tour Finals next week.
They are currently the seventh best qualifiers although they sit 11th in the latest standings.
That is because only two of the four Korean pairs ranked above them can qualify, while sixth-placed Yuki Fukushima-Sayaka Hirota of Japan and eighth-placed Du Yue-Li Yinhui of China are ineligible as they withdrew from the Bangkok bubble.
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