PETALING JAYA: After more than two years, men’s doubles shuttlers Man Wei Chong-Tee Kai Wun finally achieved a breakthrough by making it past the opening round of a World Tour Super 1000 competition for the first time.
And Wei Chong-Kai Wun did it in style by pulling off a stunning 20-22, 21-16, 21-17 win over South Korea’s reigning world champions Kang Min-hyuk-Seo Seung-jae in the Indonesian Open at the Istora Senayan in Jakarta yesterday.
The world No. 20 pair have never beaten Min-hyuk-Seung-jae before this, losing twice including in the final of the Malaysian Masters last year but turned the tables superbly to come away with the hard-fought win in 59 minutes.
Wei Chong-Kai Wun started strongly and had a golden opportunity to win the first game when they led 20-16 but the tenacious Koreans refused to give up and won six points in a row to snatch the win. The former could have folded after that but stood strong and kept putting pressure on their opponents with their aggressive attacks and were rewarded with one of their biggest wins in their careers.
Wei Chong-Kai Wun were undoubtedly delighted.
“We are happy with this breakthrough win as we always lose in the first round since we started competing in Super 1000 tournaments more than two years ago,” said Kai Wun in a post match interview with the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
“We lost to the Koreans twice before this but our matches were quite close. This time, we enjoyed the game more and played without pressure.
“This worked in our favour and we managed to play really well.”
Wei Chong said: “We prepared well and did not think too much about our opponents’ strengths.
“In the middle of the match, we discussed with our coaches and we were very clear with our strategy.”
Wei Chong-Kai Wun will be out to continue their good form when they face Denmark’s world No. 15 Rasmus Kjaer-Frederik Sogaard next for a place in the quarter-finals.
Both pairs are evenly matched based on the head-to-head records as they have beaten each other once in their past two meetings.
National No. 1 Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik are also through to the second round after easily beating Vinson Chiu-Joshua Yuan of the Unites States 21-14, 21-11.
World No. 5 Aaron-Wooi Yik will play Taiwan’s world No. 25 Lu Ching-yao-Yang Po-han next.
Meanwhile, youngsters Choong Hon Jian-Mohd Haikal Nazri gave a good account of themselves before going down fighting 21-18, 16-21, 17-21 to Taiwan’s 2021 Tokyo Olympic gold medallists Lee Yang-Wang Chi-lin.
