Fiery form: Tan Kian Meng (back) and Lai Pei Jing beat Thailand’s Dechapol Puavaranukroh-Sapsiree Taerattanachai 21-18, 21-19.
PETALING JAYA: Shuttlers Tan Kian Meng-Lai Pei Jing and Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei have been on contrasting trajectories this year.
While Kian Meng-Pei Jing went through a horror run of form that saw them drop out of the top 10 to No. 23 in the mixed doubles world rankings, Tang Jie-Ee Wei progressed steadily to take the former’s place as Malaysia’s No. 1 in the mixed doubles.
Yesterday though, both pairs rose to the occasion magnificently to smash their way into the semi-finals of the China Open and have the potential to make it an all-Malaysian affair in the final for the first time.
Expectations were low on Kian Meng-Pei Jing after the independent duo had failed to go beyond the early rounds this year in all their individual competitions but they overturned the odds to topple Thailand’s world No. 4 Dechapol Puavaranukroh-Sapsiree Taerattanachai 21-18, 21-19 in a 41-minute last-eight clash at the Olympic Sports Centre Gymnasium in Changzhou.
The win was even more impressive as Kian Meng-Pei Jing had only beaten the 2021 world champions twice in 11 meetings previously with their last success coming in the 2018 Japan Open.
They will face recently crowned world champions Seo Seung-jae-Chae Yu-jung in the last four, who snuffed out the fire of home favourites and top seeds Zheng Siwei-Huang Yaqiong 17-21, 21-13, 21-17 in a thrilling match.
Pei Jing was understandably delighted with the victory.
“It’s a very big win for us,” said Pei Jing in the post match interview with the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
“We have lost many times to them but we learnt a lot from our previous defeats. We discussed on how to do better and we managed to pull off a win this time.”
Pei Jing acknowledged the tough task ahead but has vowed to give the in-form Koreans a run for their money.
“As I have said earlier in the tournament, we are not done yet,” said Pei Jing.
“We still have another big match against the world champions and we will try to maintain our performance and give them a good fight.”
Kian Meng said: “As the underdogs, we did not put too much pressure on ourselves. We just kept focusing on our performance.”
Kian Meng-Pei Jing’s last semi-final appearance was in the World Tour Finals last December where they lost to China’s world No. 1 Siwei-Yaqiong.
Meanwhile, world No. 11 Tang Jie-Ee Wei had to dig deep to beat Taiwan’s world No. 15 Ye Hong-wei-Lee Chia-hsin 21-15, 13-21, 21-16 to reach their first ever Super 1000 event semi-final.
It was the former’s fourth consecutive win over the Taiwanese pair.
“This is a good win for us and we are really happy,” said Ee Wei.
Tang Jie said: “We were a bit braver towards the end of the third game. We also kept supporting each other and believed that we could make it.”
Tang Jie-Ee Wei will take on world No. 8 Thom Gicquel-Delphine Delrue of France next for a place in the final.
The French pair are also on a fine run, having shocked second seeds Yuta Watanabe-Arisa Higashino of Japan 22-20, 21-14 yesterday.
The Malaysians beat the French pair in the third round of the world meet last month but today’s match is expected to be evenly contested.
