Manila: Lee Zii Jia shrugged off his rather slow start in the first round of the 2022 Badminton Asia Championships (BAC) by winning the next two to advance to the BAC second round.
World No. 7 Lee Zii Jia lost to World No. 54 Sun Feixiang of China 19-21 in the first game. Lee then fought hard to win the second game 21-14. In the decider, Sun offered some initial stiff resistance at the beginning of the decider, when he was leading 8-6 at one point. However, Lee managed to stay ahead with 11-9 at the interval. After changing sides, Sun couldn’t keep up with Lee’s rhythm, and Lee won the decider 21-14 to set up a second-round meeting with Shesar Hiren Rhustavito of Indonesia.
After dropping the first game, aother Malaysian men’s singles player – World No. 35 Daren Liew was able to stage a comeback to beat Heo Kwanghee of Korea 8-21, 21-10, 21-15. Liew will meet Jonatan Christie of Indonesia in the second round.
The meeting between Liew and Christie could be seen as the preview of the second men’s singles match if Malaysia and Indonesia would meet each other in the knockout stage of the 2022 Thomas Cup Finals.
Despite putting up a strong fight, two other Malaysian men’s singles – Ng Tze Yong and Aidil Sholeh were sent packing in the first round. Aidil Sholeh lost to Wang Tzu Wei of Taiwan 14-21, 21-9, 18-21 while Ng Tze Yong went down to Kidambi Srikanth 20-22, 15-21.
In women’s doubles, Malaysia’s Anna Cheong Ching Yik/Teoh Mei Xing got off to a strong start by beating Ashwini Bhat K./Shikha Gautam of India 21-19, 21-12. However, the pair will face a tough task in the second round as they will meet No. 1 seeds Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan of China.
