KUALA LUMPUR: Professional men’s doubles badminton pair Ong Yew Sin-Teo Ee Yi are Malaysia’s sole survivors on a day when other national representatives failed to make the semifinals of the 2023 Masters Japan in Kumamoto.
In today’s quarterfinals at the Kumamoto Prefectural Gymnasium, Yew Sin-Ee Yi needed 43 minutes to dispose of Taiwanese twins Lee Fang-Chih-Lee Fang-Jen 21-19, 21-16 and advance to their third semifinals this season, after the 2023 Swiss Open and 2023 Taipei Open.
The eighth seeds will take on the seventh seeds Li Yu Chen-Ou Xuan Yi in the last four after the Chinese pair downed Japan’s Akira Koga-Taichi Saito 21-19, 21-13 in the quarterfinals.
Meanwhile, top national women’s doubles pair Pearly Tan-M Thinaah went down 13-21, 18-21 to home pair Rena Miyaura-Ayako Sakura.
Two national mixed doubles pairs – Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei and Tan Kian Meng-Lai Pei Jing – also crashed out in the quarterfinals of the Super 500 event.
Eighth seeds Tang Jie-Ee Wei lost for the third straight time to top seeds Zheng Si Wei-Huang Ya Qiong of China, going down 14-21, 14-21.
It was also the end of the road for Kian Meng-Pei Jing, who lost 15-21, 16-21 to second seed Yuta Watanabe-Arisa Higashino of Japan.