File photo of mixed doubles pair Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei during a training session. — IZZRAFIQ ALIAS/The Star
PETALING JAYA: It was a good day for Malaysia in the mixed doubles as Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei and Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai Jemie won their group matches in the World Tour Finals.
Tang Jie-Ee Wei are as good as assured for the semi-finals after beating Dejan Ferdinansyah-Gloria Imanuelle of Indonesia 21-17, 21-18 in Hangzhou, China on Thursday (Dec 12) while Soon Huat-Shevon have revived their chances of making the cut after beating Hiroki Morikawa-Natsu Saito of Japan 21-14, 21-14.
Tang Jie-Ee Wei have beaten Soon Huat-Shevon in the opening day and will complete the group fixture when they take on Morikawa-Saito on Friday with an intent of beating them to emerge as the group champions.
Soon Huat-Shevon must beat Dejan-Gloria to join Tang Jie-Ee Wei in the semis as the second best in the group.
Said Shevon: "Today, we are satisfied with our game, we played patiently. We adjusted to the condition of the court better and kept our mindset right."
"We knew anything can happen in the round robin format, and focused in our own game. We wanted to win as quick as possible and lose as slow as possible."
On their next opponents, Shevon said: "We may not not played against them (Dejan-Gloria) before but both of us are familiar with each other's playing style. We will just have to be prepared."
Tang Jie was happy to beat the Indonesians.
"We lost to them once before (China Open this year), so, it feels good to win against them," he said.
Then, he was struggling with knee injury and could not perform his best.
