Zii Jia suffers first round defeat to Magnus in Paris

PETALING JAYA: Professional shuttler Lee Zii Jia got his Europe tour off to a poor start after an unexpected defeat to left-handed player Magnus Johannesen of Denmark.

The world No. 10 went down 15-21, 19-21 in 41 minutes to the world No. 33 in the first round of the French Open at Adidas Arena in Paris on Wednesday (March 6).

Just a year ago, Zii Jia had beaten the 22-year-old Johannesen from Aalborg 21-11, 21-5 in the German Open but yesterday, the Dane got his sweet revenge.

Zii Jia, who will next compete in the All-England and Swiss Open, was disappointed.

“I was maybe not very patient and made a lot of unforced errors,” said Zii Jia, as stated in the Badminton World Federation website.

“His defensive shots made me lose confidence. Through the whole match I didn’t have any control.

“The last two years he has had good results and couple of upsets of top players, so he had progressed.”

The Dane, who has not won a match in five World Tour events this year, was overjoyed.

“I played really well in there. I kept to my gameplan and I took the right choices in the end.

“One year ago I lost to him very big. Back then it was one of my first meetings with a top world class player, but since then I’ve played others, and I hadn’t a chance against players like him, and Viktor (Axelsen) and Shi Yuqi, so it was a big one to get for me.”

Next he will face Yuqi, who had beaten reigning German Open champion Christo Popov of France 21-14, 21-15.

Meanwhile, it was all over for Malaysia in the women’s doubles with the exits of Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah and Vivian Hoo-Lim Chiew Sien.

Pearly-Thinaah gave a good fight before losing 21-18, 16-21, 12-21 to Zhang Shuxian-Zheng Yu of China while Vivian-Chiew Sien lost 15-21, 15-21 to Setyana Mapasa-Angela Yu of Australia.

In the second round on Thursday (March 7), mixed doubles pair Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei will take on Feng Yanzhe-Huang Dong-ping of China for a place in the quarter-finals. .

In the men’s doubles, the two surviving pairs – Man Wei Chong-Tee Kai Wun and Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik will face Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty of India and Lee Fang-chih-Lee Fang-jen of Taiwan respectively in the last 16 matches.