Olympic men’s doubles gold medalists and third seeds Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin were yesterday among several Taiwanese players who exited the Indonesia Open after the pair suffered a straight-sets defeat to Malaysia’s world No. 19 pairing of Goh Sze Fei and Nur Izzuddin.
Goh and Izzuddin downed Lee and Wang 15-21, 21-23 in just 37 minutes in their second-round men’s doubles match. It is the first time the teams have ever played each other in a competitive match.
In the opening game, Goh and Izzuddin secured a comfortable 11-6 lead at the mid-game interval before powering ahead to win the game 21-15.
Photo: AFP / Badminton Association of Indonesia
The two pairs then tied 15 times in the second game to reach 21-21, but the team from Malaysia shot ahead by winning two points and the match.
The world No. 3 duo of Lee and Wang have won two Thailand Open titles, the BWF World Tour Finals in January and an Olympic gold in July.
Fourth-seeded Chou Tien-chen was knocked out of contention in the second round of the men’s singles competition by unseeded Kenta Nishimoto of Japan in three games, 21-18, 15-21, 11-21 in 1 hour, 16 minutes.
Despite the stunning win by Nishimoto, Chou still holds an 8-2 head-to-head advantage over the Japanese player.
Chou, who is world No. 4 and the 2019 Indonesia Open men’s singles title holder, has yet to win a championship this year.
World No. 11 Wang Tzu-wei also crashed out of the tournament at the same stage after falling to third-seeded Anders Antonsen of Denmark 21-18, 13-21, 14-21 in 1 hour, 22 minutes.
Wang and Antonsen have now split their head-to-head record 3-3.
In the women’s singles, Pai Yu-po was knocked out by Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon, who downed the world No. 32 Pai 21-11, 21-16 in 36 minutes.
Yang Po-han and Lu Ching-yao were to play Japan’s Akira Koga and Taichi Saito in the men’s doubles after press time last night.
The Indonesia Open, which started on Tuesday in Bali and ends on Sunday, has a total purse of US$850,000, and is the second stop in the three-tournament “Indonesia Badminton Festival 2021.”
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