PETALING JAYA: Enough of early round exits!
Tan Kian Meng-Lai Pei Jing are all pumped up to make this year’s World Championships special and they showed their intent by disposing off Israel’s Misha Zilberman-Svetlana Zilberman 21-6, 21-5 in just 22 minutes to march into the mixed doubles third round yesterday.
The duo, who received a first-round bye, are competing in their fifth world meet together and have yet to go beyond the third round.
For Pei Jing, it’s her eighth world outing as she had played in three earlier editions (2013, 2014 and 2015) with former partner Tan Aik Quan but did not get past the early rounds with him. Kian Meng-Pei Jing will take on Japan’s Kyohei Yamashita-Naru Shinova next and have a good chance to reach their first quarter-finals.
“We treat every tournament as an important assignment but somehow, the world meet is always special,” said Kian Meng.
“Hopefully, Pei Jing and I will get to enjoy our best result here.”
If they make it to the last eight, their opponents will likely be top seeds Zheng Siwei-Huang Yaqiong of China, who are expected to beat their third round opponents Supak Jomkoh-Supissara Paewsampran of Thailand.
The challenge of Chen Tang Jie-Peck Yen Wei, however, has ended after they went down fighting 14-21, 21-12, 11-21 to second seeds Wang Yilyu-Huang Dongping of China in the first round.
Meanwhile, there were mixed fortunes for Malaysia in the women’s doubles as Anna Cheong-Teoh Mei Xing reached the second round but Valeree Siow-Low Yeen Yuan failed to follow suit.
Anna-Mei Xing defeated Germany’s Stine Kuespert-Emma Moszczynski 21-13, 21-15 to set up a meeting against South Koreans Jeong Na-eun-Kim Hye-jeong in the second round.
Debutants Valeree-Yeen Yuan’s inexperienced showed as they went down 11-21, 13-21 to Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand. The Indians will face Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah next.
