Kien Keat-Pei Tty’s mission hits a snag
News 10:01 AM
PETALING JAYA: Malaysia’s Koo Kien Keat and Wong Pei Tty failed to get a timely boost ahead of the Laos SEA Games when their mission to rebuild their partnership in the mixed doubles ended with a second-round defeat at the China Open in Shanghai yesterday.
The tournament was their last to work on their compatibility but they fell 16-21, 15-21 to China’s Zhang Dan-Zhao Yunlei in just 31 minutes.
The China Open was only the fourth consecutive Super Series event this year for Kien Keat-Pei Tty since the coaches decided to bring the 2006 world championship bronze medallists back together in a bid to strengthen the mixed doubles department.
The duo also failed to hit it right in the three Super Series tournaments in Denmark, France and Hong Kong – crashing out in the early rounds.
Coach Rosman Razak said that the duo were still struggling to strike a better understanding on court.
“They played well in patches. There are still areas of their game that they have to look into. Their combination is still not as lethal as before,” he said in a telephone interview.
“But they still have time to work on this before the Laos SEA Games. They have special training slots for mixed doubles and they can spend more time to have a better understanding of each other.”
Kien Keat-Pei Tty are not seeded in the Laos Games and they have been drawn in the same half as top seeds Nova Widianto-Lilyana Natsir of Indonesia and third seeds Sudket Prapakamol-T. Saralee of Thailand.
But it is still not all over for Kien Keat and Pei Tty in the China Open as they kept their challenges alive in the men’s and women’s doubles events.
Kien Keat-Tan Boon Heong reached the last eight after a convincing 21-15, 21-18 win over Denmark’s Henriksen Kasper Faust-Anders Kristiansen. They will take on Cho Gun-woo-Shin Baek-cheol of South Korea today for a place in the semi-finals.
Pei Tty-Chin Eei Hui, who were the runners-up in the tournament last year, also marched into the quarter-finals with a hard-fought 21-13, 19-21, 21-14 win over Cheng Wen-shing-Tsai Pei-ling of Taiwan.
They will play against another Taiwanese pair, Chien Yu-chin-Chou Chia-chi, and Eei Hui said of their chances: “The race here is quite open and if we can play our cards right, there is a chance to go far.”
Posted by Lucas Liau
on 10:01 AM.
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