PETALING JAYA: Mixed doubles pair Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai Jemie are eyeing a breakthrough performance at the Indonesian Open as they aim to reach the semi-finals for the first time in their careers.
But familiar foes and sixth seeds Dechapol Puavaranukroh-Supissara Paewsampran of Thailand are standing in their way.
Yesterday, Soon Huat-Shevon entered their first quarter-finals in six years at the Open following a confident 21-12, 21-17 win over home pair Amri Syahnawi-Nita Violina Marwah in the second round.
Since making their debut in the tournament in 2017, the duo have never gone beyond the quarter-final stage.
Their best showing came in 2019, when they reached the last eight before falling to China’s Wang Yilyu-Huang Dongping.
Although the straight-game victory may have looked like a walk in the park, Shevon admitted they initially struggled to adapt to the conditions
“We’ve been playing on two different courts yesterday (Wednesday) and today (yesterday) , so we had to get ourselves adjusted very quickly. Overall, I think we performed quite solid and consistently.
“The opponents did really well to try and break us, but we managed to stand together and overcome that,” said Shevon in a post match interview with BWF.
Soon Huat-Shevon will be meeting their Thai opponents for the eighth time, with their most recent clash taking place just last week at the Singapore Open, where Dechapol-Supissara got the better of the Malaysians in the quarter-finals.
This time, though, Soon Huat-Shevon are determined not to suffer the same fate.
“Our expectation is to reach the semi-finals in every tournament. We believe we can beat the Thai pair tomorrow. We’ll be better prepared,” said Soon Huat.
This year alone, the Malaysians have played against the Thais five times, and have won twice at the All-England and Asian Championships.
Second seeds Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei are also through to the quarter-finals and will take on Jesper Toft-Amalie Magelund of Denmark. They had yesterday, they knocked out another Danish pair Mads Vestergaard-Christine Busch 21-9, 21-12 in the second round.
