Kuala Lumpur: Men’s singles World No. 10 Lee Zii Jia, and men’s doubles World No. 15 Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi dazzled with their performances to help Team A won the President’s Cup on Thursday.
The face-off between Lee Zii Jia and World No. 74 Cheam June Wei was the cynosure of all eyes. Although Lee was leading at 10-7 in the first set, Cheam fought tirelessly to lead at 19-18, before hitting an out of bound backcourt shot to lose the first game 20-22.
Lee put a valiant show in the second set, running away with 6-2 before winning the second set 21-18.
“Maybe I haven’t played in international tournaments for a while and only been practicing all this time. I started to lose focus because there were no targets set for me. Before this, we were busy with tournaments and there were always targets set for each tournament,” said Lee.
According to the Kedah-born player, he honestly did not feel satisfied playing in the domestic tournament.
“It feels a little less than the actual tournament. However, to keep us in the atmosphere of a tournament, something like this should be held again,” added Lee.
In the men’s doubles match that followed, Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi stamped their authority in the clash against World No. 9 Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik by winning the second point for Team A with a 23-21, 21-13 victory in 26 minutes.
World No. 134 men’s singles player Ng Tze Yong then clinched the victory for Team A by outlasting Leong Jun Hao 21-19, 21-11.
In the last two matches which had no impact on the final result, Goh Sze Fei/Nur Izzuddin Rumsani managed to steal one point from Team A after beating Low Hang Yee/Ng Eng Cheong 21-19, 21-14.
Meanwhile, Muhammad Shaqeem Eiman Shahyar defeated Lee Shun Yang 21-15, 23-21 to enable Team A to record an overall 4-1 victory.
