PETALING JAYA: Mixed doubles shuttler Toh Ee Wei believes that she and Chen Tang Jie have work to do to close the gap on their opponents from China.
Chinese pairs currently dominate the mixed doubles competition with Zheng Siwei-Huang Yaqiong, Feng Yanzhe-Huang Dongping and Jiang Zhenbang-Wei Yaxin all ranked in the world’s top three.
Tang Jie-Ee Wei are behind in their head-to-head records with all three pairs.
World No. 1 and Paris Olympics gold medallists Siwei-Yaqiong remain the only pair in the world’s top 10 that world No. 9 Tang Jie-Ee Wei have never beaten.
The latter have lost all four of their past meetings in straight games.
Tang Jie-Ee Wei are also behind 2-3 and 1-2 in the head-to-head records against world No. 2 Yanzhe-Dongping and world No. 3 Zhenbang-Yaxin respectively.
The Malaysians went down 14-21, 21-23 to Yanzhe-Dongping in the semi-finals of the Hong Kong Open in Kowloon on Saturday.
After the defeat, Ee Wei said that the Chinese pairs had quality sparring when they train with each other which she and Tang Jie do not have and they need to find a solution to this.
“China have three pairs in the world’s top three and they train together and have quality sparring,” Ee Wei told the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
“This is what we lack and we need to improve on this to be able to match them consistently in the future.
“Yanzhe-Dongping played a very good match today (Saturday) and we learned some things from them. We hope to be more consistent in our performances.”
Despite the defeat, Tang Jie-Ee Wei can still hold their heads high after an encouraging year so far.
The duo captured their first World Tour Super 500 title in the Korean Open earlier this month and finished runners-up in the Thailand Masters in January and Swiss Open in March.
Tang Jie-Ee Wei also had a promising debut in the Olympics in Paris last month when they reached the last eight.
The pair are now on course to qualify for the prestigious season ending World Tour Finals from Dec 11-15 in Hangzhou for the second consecutive year after making their debut last year.
Tang Jie-Ee Wei are currently ranked second in the Race to Hangzhou rankings, behind only No. 1 Zhenbang-Yaxin.
Only the top eight pairs will make the cut.
