KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s interest in the World Tour Finals (WTF) 2023 came to an end after national top mixed doubles pair Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei failed to make the cut to the last four of the season-ending badminton tournament in Hangzhou, China, yesterday.
In their final Group A fixture at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Gymnasium, the Malaysians beat Thailand's two-time champions Dechapol Puavaranukroh-Sapsiree Taerattanachai 21-18 in the first game but fumbled after that.
A series of unforced errors from the Malaysians allowed their opponents to bounce back and take the next two games at 21-18, 21-14 to seal the match.
Today’s results placed Tang Jie-Ee Wei at the bottom of Group A, while Puavaranukroh-Taerratanachai secured the third spot behind Japan's world number two Yuta Watanabe-Arisa Higashino.
Home pair Feng Yan Zhe-Huang Dong Ping topped the group with three points after beating Watanabe-Higashino 21-16, 19-21, 21-17 tonight for their third consecutive victory.
Although all the other three pairs finished with one point, Watanabe-Higashino joined the Chinese in the semi-finals on better game difference in the group campaign with zero (0) compared to Puavaranukroh-Taerratanachai (-2) and Tang Jie-Ee Wei (-2).
Only the top two pairs from each group advanced to the semi-finals.
Last Wednesday, Tang Jie-Ee Wei got off their WTF 2023 campaign on the wrong footing, losing in straight games to Yan Zhe-Dong Ping 10-21, 13-21.
However, the Malaysians managed to recover from that defeat as they picked up their first win in WTF by upsetting Watanabe-Higashino 12-21, 21-16, 21-16 yesterday.
Earlier today, 2022 men’s doubles world champions Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik were eliminated from the tournament after losing all their Group A matches to take the last place in the table.
Aaron-Wooi Yik went down to world number one pair Liang Wei Keng-Wang Chang of China 21-18, 14-21, 12-21 in an hour.
The last time Malaysia had no representatives in the last four was in the 2019 edition held in Guangzhou. -Bernama
