PETALING JAYA: Indonesia’s second-stringers are one step ahead of Malaysia’s future stars.
That was evident at the Australian Open, where Justin Hoh and Low Zi Yu-Noraqilah Maisarah Ramdan bowed out with whimpers in the quarter-finals in Sydney yesterday.
National No. 2 men’s singles shuttler Justin had hoped to make a bold statement after a string of disappointing results, but instead suffered a heavy 7-21, 13-21 defeat to Indonesia’s Moh Zaki Ubaidillah in a one-sided match that lasted just 38 minutes.
The manner in which the world No. 47 Malaysian fell apart highlighted the gap in standard between the 22-year-old Justin and the 18-year-old Zaki.
Expectations were high for Justin after he defeated Zaki at the Asian Team Championships in China earlier this year, but this time the Indonesian was a class above.
It was Justin’s third defeat to Zaki. He had also lost to the Indonesian in last year’s SEA Games team competition and the Thailand Masters.
Zi Yu-Noraqilah put up more of a fight in the second game against Febriana Dwipuji-Meilysa Trias, but still went down 13-21, 17-21.
With their defeats, Malaysia’s challenge at the Australian Open came to an end.
