Bangkok: The men’s doubles No. 6 seeds Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik pulled off an easier than expected victory over the Tokyo Olympic champions Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin of Chinese Taipei on Friday as the Malaysian pair needed only 29 minutes to beat Lee/Wang 21-17, 21-10 in the 2022 Thailand Open quarter-finals.
The 2022 Thailand Open men’s doubles quarter-final match between Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik and Lee Yang/Wang Chi-lin:
Waiting for Chia/Soh in the next round will be the No. 5 seeds Fajar Alfian/Muhammad Rian Ardianto of Indonesia.
In another men’s doubles quarter-final action, Denmark’s No. 7 seeds Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen sprung a surprise to upset No. 1 seeds Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia 21-13, 21-15. The Danish pair will meet reigning World Champions Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi of Japan in the final four.
The upsets continued in the women’s doubles event, where World No. 1 Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan of China were tumbling against World No. 7 Nami Matsuyama/Chiharu Shida of Japan, surrendering 21-17, 13-21, 17-21 in 67 minutes.
Malaysia’s World No. 10 Pearly Tan/Thinaah Muralitharan were young and ruthless, beating former World No. 1 Yuki Fukushima/Sayaka Hirota of Japan 24-22, 21-12 to set up a semi-final battle with Nami Matsuyama/Chiharu Shida on Saturday.
Meanwhile, China’s Tokyo Olympic champions Wang Yi Lyu/Huang Dong Ping will play World No. 1 Dechapol Puavaranukroh/Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Thailand while World No. 2 Zheng Si Wei/Huang Ya Qiong of China will face off against World No. 3 Yuta Watanabe/Arisa Higashino of Japan in the mixed doubles semi-finals.
