Pumped-up Aaron-Wooi Yik storm into Indian Open semis

PETALING JAYA: Doubles shuttlers Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik came to the rescue for Malaysia once again.

The former world champions Aaron-Wooi Yik gave home fans lots to cheer when they powered their way to the semi-finals of the Indian Open with a superb 21-19, 21-19 win against China’s Liu Yuchen-Ou Xuanyi in the quarter-finals at the K.D. Jadhav Indoor Hall in New Delhi.

This is now Aaron-Wooi Yik’s third win out of the past seven meetings against the eighth seeds Chinese pair.

They will play the winners of the match between India’s Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty and Denmark’s Kim Astrup-Anders Skaarup Rasmussen for a place in the final.

“Our strategy worked well today. We have played against them many times, so we were able to anticipate their game,” said Wooi Yik, who lost in the quarter-finals with Aaron at the Malaysian Open in Bukit Jalil last week.

Said Aaron: “It’s important to achieve a good result here because we reached the Indian Open final last year. We have to reach the final again to safeguard our Olympic qualifying points.”

Aaron-Wooi Yik are the only Malaysians left in the tournament after all others crashed out.

Earlier, world No. 10 men’s singles player Lee Zii Jia ended his Indian Open campaign after losing to Japan’s Kodai Naraoka 21-13, 9-21, 16-21 in the quarter-finals.

Professional mixed doubles pair of Goh Soon Huat-Lai Shevon Jemie also failed to enter the semi-finals as they lost to China’s Zhenbang-Wei Yaxin 13-21, 13-21.