Malaysian mixed doubles players Goh Soon Huat (right) and Lai Shevon Jemie in action. - filepic
PETALING JAYA: Mixed doubles shuttler Shevon Lai Jemie wants to end the year with a medal in a major event.
So expect her to step on the gas with Goh Soon Huat in the European leg starting with the Denmark Open from Oct 18-23 in Odense. They will also compete in the French Open in Paris (Oct 25-30) and the Hylo Open in Saarbrucken in Germany (Nov 1-6).
Shevon-Soon Huat are ranked 13th in the world and are set to qualify for the World Tour Finals in Guangzhou, China, in December.
It has been a pretty good year for Shevon-Soon Huat so far, despite having gone through some challenges.
They dumped world No. 1 Dechapol Puavaranukroh-Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Thailand in the opening round of the Indonesian Open.
They also upstaged world No. 9 Thom Gicquel-Delphine Delrue of France to reach the quarter-finals of the World Championships in Tokyo and did well to reach the Singapore Open semi-finals.
“Overall, both of us have done well, we’ve seen improvements in some areas of our game where we used to struggle before ... so those are the plus points,” said Shevon.
“There have been some good results but we really want to get a medal in a major event. We also want to beat at least another top five pair besides the Thais this year.”Shevon-Soon Huat were on fire at the world meet en route to the quarter-finals before losing to world No. 2 Yuta Watanabe-Arisa Higashino.
“It has been a good year with many challenges, we’ve experienced both ups and downs,” she said.
“We supported each other through some really tough times, hard trainings, Covid-19, acute food poisoning and drop in form and confidence, just to mention a few.
“It’s great that we came through it all and we are now looking forward to our European tournaments. We hope for positive results, and ultimately hope to make a mark in our last major tournament at the World Tour Finals,” she added.
Shevon-Soon Huat and Tan Kian Meng-Lai Pei Jing are in good positions to qualify for the Finals at fourth and sixth respectively. A country can have two pairs if both are ranked in the top four, which is not impossible to achieve.
