PETALING JAYA: Mixed doubles shuttlers Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai Jemie are out to take advantage of a favourable draw in the World Tour Finals which starts on Wednesday in Hangzhou.
World No. 10 Soon Huat-Shevon have a good opportunity to reach the last four along with fellow Malaysians, world No. 8 Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei after both pairs were placed in Group B with Indonesia’s Dejan Ferdinansyah-Gloria Emanuelle (No. 13) and Japan’s Hiroki Midorikawa-Natsu Saito (No. 21).
The Malaysians can thank their lucky stars after they avoided China’s Paris Olympics gold medallists Zheng Siwei-Huang Yaqiong and world No. 2 Jiang Zhenbang-Wei Yaxin, who are both in Group A.
The other pairs in Group A are Hong Kong’s world No. 6 Tang Chun Man-Tse Ying Suet and Taiwan’s world No. 14 Yang Po-hsuan-Hu Ling-fang.
Only the top two pairs in the group will reach the semi-finals.
Soon Huat-Shevon are happy with their draw and hope to bring out their best performance in the tournament.
“I think we have a good draw, not having a Chinese pair in our group. We will prepare well and do our best,” said Shevon.
Tang Jie-Ee Wei will also be keen to make the most of their good fortune and make it into the last four for the first time in the Finals.
The pair missed out on the semi-final last year in their debut Finals.
Meanwhile, women’s doubles pair Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah have a tough task after they found themselves grouped together with China’s world No. 1 Liu Shengshu-Tan Ning, Japan’s world No. 4 Nami Matsuyama-Chiharu Shida and India’s world No. 13 Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand in Group A.
Shengshu-Tan Ning have been in top form this year and have beaten Pearly-Thinaah six times in their past nine meetings.
The Malaysians have also struggled against Matsuyama-Shida and have only won once in 11 encounters against the Japanese duo.
Pearly-Thinaah do have a better record against Treesa-Gayatri, coming out on top against them six times and losing only once, but the Indians have improved and will be no pushovers this time.
