KUALA LUMPUR: National men’s doubles pair Aaron Chia Teng Fong-Soh Wooi Yik ended their campaign as runners-up of the 2019 All-England badminton championship in Birmingham on Sunday.
The unseeded pair displayed a commendable performance during the final match against the 2015 world champion pair Mohammad Ahsan-Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia, which was aired live on TV1.
Chia-Soh began with a convincing 21-11 win in the first set before Mohammad-Hendra finetuned their performance with continuous attacks to win the second set with 21-14.
In the rubber set, multiple mistakes in the nets by the national pair enabled Mohammad-Hendra to end the game with 21-12, hence grabbing the second All-England title for them after the first in 2014.
The last time Malaysia won the title was through Koo Kien Kiat-Tan Boon Heong in 2007.
Fielded as the underdogs, the Malaysian young pair sprung a couple of surprises in their way to the finals, including when they ousted an experienced pair from China Liu Cheng-Zhang Nan in the quarterfinals and Fajar Alfian-Muhammad Rian Ardianto from Indonesia in the semi-finals. – Bernama
