French Open: Only three pairs left as Zii Jia, Pearly-Thinaah exit early

Malaysia are left with only three representatives in the French Open second round which gets underway today, after most of the shuttlers including Lee Zii Jia and Pearly Tan-M.Thinaah crashed out in the opening round.

National men’s doubles and mixed doubles pairs Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik, Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei and Man Wei Chong-Tee Kai Wun are the representatives left in this Super 750 event held in Paris, the capital of this year’s Olympic Games.

Chen-Toh had beaten compatriots Tan Kian Meng-Lai Pei Jing 21-18, 21-15 to advance to the next round when they will face fourth seeded Chinese pair Feng Yan Zhe-Huang Dong Ping.

In the men’s doubles, Man-Tee have a similarly tough test against top seeds Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty, while Chia-Soh progressed after their German opponents retired midway through the first game.

The fifth seeds will face Chinese Taipei’s Lee Fang-chih-Lee Fang-jen for a place in the quarter-finals.

The rest of the contingent all exited early in the competition after disappointing defeats, most particularly for shuttlers who were tipped to at least reach the last eight.

In the men’s singles, Lee crashed out after 41-minutes against Denmark’s fourth ranked player Magnus Johannesen 15-21, 19-21.

National women’s doubles pair Tan-Thinaah also could not break out of their rut after they suffered a 21-18, 16-21, 12-21 loss against Chinese pair Zhang Shu Xian-Zheng Yu.

It continued to be the same theme for the world number 15 pair, who have only made it as far as the quarter-finals in four World Tour events.

Vivian Hoo-Lim Chiew Sien’s straight game loss against an Australian pair summed up Malaysia’s miserable outing.