Teik Chai Gan, Soon Hock Ong power their way into pre quarter-finals – Dutch Open Update
Men’s Doubles team Teik Chai Gan-Soon Hock Ong of Malaysia cleared its first hurdle in Yonex Dutch Open and escorted their country to the pre quarter-finals on October 11, 2012.
They stamped the local pair Jacco Arends-Jelle Maas in Almere, Netherlands and setup next encounter with Christian John Skovgaard-Mads Pieler Kolding of Denmark.
This epic tussle kept both teams head-to-head for 52 minutes before ending with final result of 16-21, 21-18 and 21-15.
The Malaysian duo took some time to get settled as they lost first set with a notable deficit but they came back with a strong reply and locked the honour by winning the last two games.
In first set of the match, Teik Chai and Soon Hock kick-started their campaign with a flurry of power packed strokes and gained an early advantage with 6-2 total.
At this stage, the Dutch players geared up themselves and caught the opposing team at 8-8 score position.
The twosome of Jacco and Jelle carried this flow in the next couple of rallies and finished first half with a decent edge.
Later part of the game also belonged to the native shuttlers as they did not spare any loop-hole and placed a winning margin of 21-16.
However, their supremacy was short lived as the opposing team stormed back with a gutsy performance and counter-balanced the situation.
The Malaysian team played cautiously in the beginning and tried to keep the bird under their control but second half of the set saw them making swift progress.
At first, Teik Chai and Soon Hock established a significant lead in 16-12 margin and then left their challengers far behind with scoreboard flashing concluding figure of 21-18.
Third set, unexpectedly, proved a dead contest as the local shuttlers failed to rise from the dust and remained at the lower end all the way to game point situation.
They let a few valuable points slip from their hands immediately in the beginning and then never came out of this deficit.
Teik Chai and Soon Hock relished full benefits of their competitors’ blunders and saved some honour by registering 21-15 total on points table.
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