Badminton: Malaysia’s weakest pair beat world champs

Photo Gallery: Malaysian Open 

A stunner: Ong Soon Hock and Tan Bin Shen react to their upset win over China’s Fu Hai Feng and Cai Yun at the Malaysia Open. The Malaysian pair won 25-23, 21-17.

RANKED the weakest pair in the men's doubles department of the national badminton team, Tan Bin Shen-Ong Soon Hock turned on the power yesterday to eliminate world champions Fu Haifeng-Cai Yun-Fu of China to reach the quarter-finals of the Malaysian Open. 

The world number 32 fought tooth-and-nail for 39 minutes to blow away the Chinese with a fantastic 25-23, 21-17 win. It was the duo's career best match win. 

Bin Shen-Soon Hock will take on the formidable American-Indonesian combination of Tony Gunawan-Candra Wijaya today for a place in the semi-finals. 

The back-up squad pair, who came through from the the qualifying tournament, attributed their success yesterday to national coach Rexy Mainaky. 

“We took his advice to heart. We were instructed to keep the shuttle low and control the mid-court to prevent them (the top Chinese pair) from attacking. We know their defence were poor and played a more attacking game,” said the 23-year-old Bin Shen. 

“It is a fantastic win for us, especially when our partnerships had nothing to show for the last one year because of injury to Soon Hock. We had disappointed coach Rexy many times but not today.” 

Their previous career best match win was over All-England champions and world number one Jens Eriksen-Martin Lundgaard Hansen of Denmark in a friendly match in Alor Star in 2005. 

For the 23-year-old Soon Hock, the victory over Haifeng-Cai Yun was also one to be cherished after being ruled out of competition for eight months because of a shoulder injury. 

“Coach Rexy never gave up hope on us. He gave us so many chances since we resumed our partnership in September last year,” said an emotional Soon Hock. 

“Thanks to his guidance, we were confident even before we went on court. We kept encouraging each other and this is certainly a great start again for us.” 

Bin Shen-Soon Hock, who paired up four years ago, achieved their best results in an Open tournament with a semi-final appearance in the 2004 Malaysian Open. 

On their match against 2000 Sydney Olympics gold medallists Tony-Candra, Soon Hock said: “The win today has inspired us to achieve better results. They are more experienced but we will give them a good fight.” 

While Soon Hock-Bin Shen gave the home crowd lots to cheer, the more prominent national back-up pair of Mohd Fairuzizuan Mohd Tazari-Lin Woon Fui were a huge letdown. 

It was supposed to be a stroll in the park for them in a second round match against Japanese Shuichi Sakamoto-Shintaro Ikeda but they crashed to tame 12-21, 11-21 defeat. 

A stunner: Ong Soon Hock and Tan Bin Shen react to their upset win over China’s Fu Hai Feng and Cai Yun at the Malaysia Open. The Malaysian pair won 25-23, 21-17.