Sports Jenny on 18 Jan 2008 03:23 am
Koo Kien Keat-Tan Boon Heong Lost in Malaysia Open 2008
Choong Tan Fook-Lee Wan Wah and Chan Chong Ming-Chew Choon Eng has moved into the quarter-finals in the Malaysian Open badminton championships 2008. This should be very great news to us, but the celebrations were muted following the shocking exit of defending champions Koo Kien Keat-Tan Boon Heong at the Putra Stadium in Bukit Jalil last night. Once again! I really do not understand what happened to them again.
The pair lost in their second round when they met the former world champions Lars Paaske-Jonas Rasmussen of Denmark. Besides, The world number one pair struggled to beat third-ranked Indonesians Hendra Gunawan-Joko Riyadi in their opening match on Wednesday.
This is the second successive time that they have failed to make it past the early rounds of a Super Series tournament. Kien Keat-Boon Heong lost to Taiwan’s Tsai Chia-hsin-Hu Chung-shien in the second round of the China Open last November.
This time, Boon Heong to be blamed to the lost to the Danish pair again. Kien Keat had to run all over the court to do most of the work and the Danish pair, world champions in 2003, capitalised on it by targeting Boon Heong in the rubber game. Boon Heong committed numerous unforced errors in the rubber game to allow the veteran Danish pair to come back from 11-14 down and seal victory.
Despite the unexpected early defeat, doubles coach Rexy Mainaky chose not to blast the Malaysian pair for their poor display, saying “they are still the main hope for the Beijing Olympics in August”.
“We have to understand that no athlete can stay on the winning trail all the time. The pair have been performing well for some time and it’s more important for them to learn from this and come back stronger.”