Australian Open GP Gold: Peng Soon, Liu Ying march into quarter-finals of Mixed Doubles event
Mixed Doubles team of Malaysia Peng Soon Chan-Liu Ying Goh kept the nation’s hope alive and marched into the quarter-finals of Australian Open GP Gold on April 5, 2012.
Third seeded pair of Peng Soon-Liu Ying buried their rivals Wai Hong Wong-Hoi Wah Chau from Hong Kong by placing concluding figures 18-21, 21-12 and 21-11 on the scoreboard in 45 minutes.
Now they will lock horns with the World Number 18 Chinese pair He Hanbin-Bao Yixin in the quarter-finals of the event.
Earlier in second round match, the World Number eight duo took some time to get on the right track against their lower ranked rivals Hong Wong-Wah Chau.
The spirited shuttlers from Hong Kong put a great fight in opening game and earned a crucial match point. The Doubles experts Hong Wong-Wah Chau matched their rivals’ skills in all areas of the game and continuously stepped forward on the scoreboard.
They left the Malaysians far behind with a final leap at the game point situation and bagged the first set with scoreboard flashing final figures of 21-18.
Partnership of Peng Soon and Liu Ying found their lost form in the very next game and they stormed back with a staggering performance.
This time they established their supremacy in no time and kept their rivals at lower end with a powerful attack in first half of the set. Their relatively inexperienced opponents kept trailing behind them in later part also and never came out of 9-point
deficit.
The Malaysian couple levelled the lead with a significant margin of 21-12.
The decider was expected to be a cliff hanging tussle as both teams had proved their worth in previous sets but the Hong Kong shuttlers turned sitting ducks and hardly showed any resistance when Peng Soon and Liu Ying hunted them down.
Malaysian duo established an unassailable lead from the beginning and carried it all the way through the final set. They raised their hands as victors when scorers displayed the concluding figures of 21-11 at end of the game.
The Mixed Doubles experts Peng Soon and Liu Ying have fair chances to surge into the finals as they are up against relatively lower ranked opponents in the quarter and semi-finals of the event.
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