Eei Hui up for the fight

KUALA LUMPUR: Women’s doubles shuttler Chin Eei Hui will be out to prevent a second blow to her partnership with Wong Pei Tty in a month when she gets into action in the Denmark Open in Odense on Wednesday.

Last month, the duo fell from grace and lost their world No. 1 ranking.

They will be defending the Denmark Open title as the world No. 2. Incidentally, they nailed their first career title in Denmark last year before claiming a second at the Indonesian Open in June this year.

The injury-prone Eei Hui said that they were not prepared to go down without a fight in the ninth leg of the Super Series even though the field is tougher this time.

“The Denmark Open always brings back good memories for us because it was our first career title after many, many misses,” said Eei Hui before leaving for Odense yesterday.

“The field is quite competitive. We will have to bring out our best and it will not be easy to retain the title. For now, the target is to reach the semi-finals.”

Eei Hui-Pei Tty are the top seeds because the draw was made before they dropped one rung in the world rankings.

They are in the same half as China’s Pan Pan-Zhang Yawen and Japan Open runners-up Miyuki Maeda-Satoko Suetsuna and Mizuki Fujii-Reika Kakiiwa of Japan.

They are expected to take on world No. 15 Fujii-Kakiiwa in the second round. If they advance, they are expected to play against the Pan Pan-Yawen scratch pair. A semi-final berth will probably give them a match against Maeda-Suetsuna.

“The Japanese players, whether they are old or new pairs, have always been stumbling blocks for us. They can really run and never get tired easily. We will have to be wary of them.”

On losing their status as world No. 1, Eei Hui said: “The world ranking had never been our pride or joy. To us, what is more important is to win titles or if we lose, we want to go down fighting.

“We are playing better now. In the Japan Open last month, we lost to China’s Ma Jin-Wang Xiaoli in the quarter-finals.

“We gave a better fight compared to a thrashing we received from them in the Malaysian Open Grand Prix Gold final in Johor Baru. Hopefully, we can keep this momentum going.”

Eei Hui is now free from injuries.

Posted by Lucas Liau on 11:11 AM. Filed under Chin Eei Hui, News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0