NATIONAL professional men’s singles player Lee Zii Jia’s hopes of reaching the semi-finals of the 2024 Kumamoto Masters Japan were dashed when he was stopped by world number six Jonatan Christie of Indonesia today.
In the quarter-final clash at the Kumamoto Prefectural Gymnasium, Zii Jia, who is ranked seventh in the world, started fiercely when he defeated Jonatan 21-12 but was defeated 18-21 and 18-21 in the next two sets.
This was Zii Jia’s sixth defeat to the same player after the 2018 Malaysia Masters, 2018 Thomas Cup, 2019 Swiss Open, 2019 Singapore Open and the 2024 Badminton Asia Championships.
National mixed doubles, Hoo Pang Ron-Cheng Su Yin also suffered the same fate when they were defeated by Dechapol Puavaranukroh-Supissara Paewsampran of Thailand, 17-21 and 16-21.
Meanwhile, the national professional mixed doubles team of Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai Jemie managed to place themselves in the top four after defeating the Japanese pair, Hiroki Midorikawa-Natsu Saito, 21-16 and 21-13.
Soon Huat-Shevon, who entered as the third seed of the tournament, will face Thailand’s Dechapol-Supissara, who lost to the Malaysian pair in the 2024 Arctic Open last month.
The national professional men’s doubles team, Nur Mohd Azriyn Ayub Azriyn-Tan Wee Kiong also managed to overcome the quarter-final hurdle by defeating Chiu Hsiang Chieh-Wang Chi Lin of Taiwan, 21-19 and 21-19, and will continue the challenge against the tournament’s sixth seeds, Takuro Hoki-Yugo Kobayashi of Japan.
This will be the first meeting for Wee Kiong-Nur Mohd Azriyn, who are ranked 40th in the world, against the ninth ranked pair.
