PETALING JAYA: Men’s doubles pair Wan Arif Wan Junaidi-Yap Roy King admitted that they ran out of energy after failing to reach the Malaysian Masters final, ending the country’s hopes of another all-local showdown this year.
Their previous record counted for little against Daniel Lundgaard-Mads Vestergaard in the semi-finals despite having beaten the Danish pair in all four of their earlier meetings.
Arif-Roy King struggled to maintain their intensity before going down 19-21, 17-21 in 49 minutes.
Arif admitted they badly wanted the win, but their energy levels dropped as the match wore on against the Danish pair, which ultimately led to their defeat.
“First of all, I want to apologise to all our supporters because we could not win today,” said Arif.
“We really wanted to win, but our opponents played better than us.
“After the match, we discussed it and I think today’s defeat came down to our energy.
“Maybe our energy dropped. Hopefully, we can recover and come back stronger at the Singapore Open next week.
“I think we struggled a bit in the first set. There was some tension around the first interval, but after that it got better.
“But in the second set, our attacks were not working and our energy levels dropped a lot.’’
Despite the defeat, Arif-Roy King admitted that reaching the semi-finals was still a proud achievement as they had surpassed their initial target.
“To be honest, we never really thought about reaching the semi-finals because I only got the chance to play in this tournament at the last minute after passing my test last week,” added Arif.
“When I looked at the draw and saw where we were placed, I felt we had a chance to make the semi-finals.
“But at the same time, we had to be careful because we did not want the injury to get worse.
“However, we are grateful to have made it to the semi-finals.”
The defeat also meant Arif-Roy King’s wait for another final appearance goes on, with their last coming when they won the Macau Open in July last year.
Arif-Roy King will compete in the Singapore Open next week, where they will face Japan’s Takumi Nomura-Yuichi Shimogami in the opening round.
