Despondent: Malaysia’s doubles pair Aaron Chia (left) and Soh Wooi Yik said they lost in the quarter-finals because they rushed their shots.
PETALING JAYA: A lack of patience has again cost Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik dearly.
The national men’s doubles pair had won the first game comfortably and were leading 13-10 in the second against home favourites Takuro Hoki-Yugo Kobayashi in the quarter-finals of the Japan Open but ended up losing 21-10, 15-21, 16-21 at the Yoyogi Gymnasium in Tokyo yesterday.
World No. 4 Aaron-Wooi Yik had got off to a fine start against the Japanese pair and raced to a 11-5 lead.
They then went on to wrap up the game confidently.
But in the second game, world No. 5 Hoki-Kobayashi stayed closer to Aaron-Wooi Yik and a few errors started creeping into the latter’s game.
The Japanese duo fought back from 10-13 down to even the score at 15-15.
From there, Hoki-Kobayashi kept up the pressure to reel off six consecutive points to take the match to a decider.
Buoyed by their second-game win, they led throughout the third to win the match much to the delight of the home fans.
Aaron was left to rue their impatience, which had ruined their chances of winning before this as well.
“We were playing well until the midway point in the second game but then started rushing our shots a bit,” lamented Aaron.
“Perhaps we wanted to win too much and ended up following our opponents’ rhythm.”
Said Wooi Yik: “We need to maintain our focus better until the end of matches after this.
“We will try to improve on this in our next tournament.”
The defeat to Hoki-Kobayashi meant that Aaron-Wooi Yik have still not managed to beat the former in an individual competition.
Their only wins over the Japanese pair came in the 2020 Asian Team Championships and 2021 Sudirman Cup group match while they have now lost six times to them.
Malaysia’s challenge in the tournament is over after Aaron-Wooi Yik’s exit.
Aaron-Wooi Yik will now turn their attention to the Australian Open from Aug 1-6 in Sydney.
Hoki-Kobayashi will take on China’s world No. 7 Liu Yuchen-Ou Xuanyi in the last four.
The Chinese pair fought hard to overcome another Japanese pair Akira Koga-Taichi Saito 20-22, 22-20, 21-14 in another quarter-final match.
The other last-four match will be between Indonesia’s world No. 1 Fajar Alfian-Rian Ardianto and Taiwan’s reigning Olympic champions Lee Yang-Wang Chi-lin.
