Voicing out: Soh Wooi Yik feels the service judge made several questionalble calls during the match against Japan’s Keiichiro Matsui-Yoshinori Takeuchi in the Korean Open.
PETALING JAYA: Shuttler Soh Wooi Yik was unhappy with the standard of the service judge in his second-round match with Aaron Chia in the Korean Open.
The duo suffered a surprise 21-19, 18-21,19-21 defeat to Japan’s world No. 34 Keiichiro Matsui-Yoshinori Takeuchi in Yeosu on Thursday.
Wooi Yik said he felt that the service judge from the Badminton World Federation (BWF) was biased against him and Aaron during the match.The 25-year-old aired his frustrations in a post in his Instagram story where he requested BWF to check the standard of the service judge.
“BWF official, please check your service judge’s level and standard,” said Wooi Yik.
“Is it fair enough?! It’s too obvious he was against Malaysia.”
Wooi Yik believed the service judge made several questionable calls during the match.
He was especially displeased when he felt Matsui’s flick serve at 18-16 in the third game was too high but went unpunished.
Both Aaron and Wooi Yik’s complaints were ignored by the service judge. The Japanese pair went on to record a famous victory over the world No. 4 Malaysians.
Wooi Yik was also left ruing his mistake when he served in the net at 19-20 in the third game to gift Matsui-Takeuchi the winning point.
Doubles coaching director Rexy Mainaky felt Aaron could have performed better in the match.
“Aaron did not play his own game well,” said Rexy.
He did not move well on court and mainly relied on power.”
Rexy did not comment on the service judge’s calls.
The defeat was a blow to Aaron-Wooi Yik, who had hoped to maintain their form after reaching the semi-finals of the Singapore Open and finishing runners-up at the Indonesian Open last month.
The world No. 4 pair will need to pick themselves up for the Japan Open in Tokyo next week where they are set to open their campaign against India’s M. R. Arjun-Dhruv Kapila.
