PETALING JAYA: Men’s doubles pair Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik produced a remarkable fightback to outplay Asian Games gold medallists Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty of India to reach the semi-finals at the Adidas Arena in Port de la Chapelle on Thursday.
World No. 5 Satwiksairaj-Chirag started aggressively but Aaron-Wooi Yik turned around their performance in second and third games to secure a hard-fought 13-21, 21-14, 21-16 in 59 minutes.
The victory also snapped Aaron-Wooi Yik’s three consecutive defeats to Satwiksairaj-Chirag and more importantly, a place in the medal rounds.
Aaron-Wooi Yik showed nerves of steel as they trailed 11-14 in the rubber game before turning on the power to upstage the Indian pair.
Aaron-Wooi Yik will meet top seeds Liang Weikeng-Wang Chang of China, who defeated Fajar Alfian-Rian Ardianto of Indonesia 24-22, 22-20, in the semi-finals on Friday.
Aaron is happy to reach his second consecutive Olympic Games semi-finals.
"There was quite a lot of nerves and pressure because we lost to them in the last few meetings. We were hoping to cross the hurdle and we did it,” said Aaron.
Aaron-Wooi Yik won a bronze at the last edition and will be out to go one better.
