National men’s doubles shuttler Soh Wooi Yik has promised to give his best with partner Aaron Chia at the upcoming World Tour Finals (WTF, Dec 13-17) in their bid to reach the knockout round for the first time.
Since the WTF rebranding in 2018, Soh-Chia have featured in this season finale event three times (2019, 2020 & 2022), but crashed out in the group stages on all three occasions.
This year, the world number three pair will head to Hangzhou, China with a World Tour title finally to their name courtesy of their Denmark Open success and a good overall form.
“Myself and Aaron have spoken at length about this WTF. Our immediate aim is to make it out of the group, where the matches will start off tough. We are focusing a lot on our match play and strategy this week.
“How we plan our strategy will be crucial and could prove the difference. The other seven pairs all have top fitness levels, and mentally everyone is focused as well. We will discuss with the coaches on our opponents weakness, which is where I see us getting the points,” said Soh.
Liang Wei Keng-Wang Chang (China), Fajar Alfian-Rian Ardianto (Indonesia), Kang Min-hyuk-Seo Seung-jae (South Korea), Takuro Hoki-Yugo Kobayashi (Japan), Kim Astrup-Anders Skaarup Rasmussen (Denmark), Liu Yu Chen-Ou Xuan Yi (China) and Shohibul Fikri-Bagas Maulana (Indonesia) make up the eight pairs.
Between them, these eight pairs have won a total of 15 titles on the World Tour circuit this year.
Soh singled out Liang-Wang as potentially their toughest opponents in Hangzhou.
“Liang-Wang and Chirag (Shetty)-Satwiksairaj (Rankireddy) are our biggest challenges. They are consistent and always are in the semi-finals or final. Before I sleep, I will always watch Youtube videos of these pairs and study their matches.
“But when we play our best, we can give anyone a tough fight. We just have to focus on court and ensure we can keep our lead, besides managing how to deal with opponents changing strategy midgame,” he added.
Besides winning the Denmark Open, Soh-Chia have finished runners-up at the India, Indonesia and China Open this year.
The draw for the WTF will be held on Dec 11.
The competition format will see these eight pairs divided into two groups, with the top two pairs from each group advancing to the semis.
Since the WTF rebranding in 2018, Soh-Chia have featured in this season finale event three times (2019, 2020 & 2022), but crashed out in the group stages on all three occasions.
This year, the world number three pair will head to Hangzhou, China with a World Tour title finally to their name courtesy of their Denmark Open success and a good overall form.
“Myself and Aaron have spoken at length about this WTF. Our immediate aim is to make it out of the group, where the matches will start off tough. We are focusing a lot on our match play and strategy this week.
“How we plan our strategy will be crucial and could prove the difference. The other seven pairs all have top fitness levels, and mentally everyone is focused as well. We will discuss with the coaches on our opponents weakness, which is where I see us getting the points,” said Soh.
Liang Wei Keng-Wang Chang (China), Fajar Alfian-Rian Ardianto (Indonesia), Kang Min-hyuk-Seo Seung-jae (South Korea), Takuro Hoki-Yugo Kobayashi (Japan), Kim Astrup-Anders Skaarup Rasmussen (Denmark), Liu Yu Chen-Ou Xuan Yi (China) and Shohibul Fikri-Bagas Maulana (Indonesia) make up the eight pairs.
Between them, these eight pairs have won a total of 15 titles on the World Tour circuit this year.
Soh singled out Liang-Wang as potentially their toughest opponents in Hangzhou.
“Liang-Wang and Chirag (Shetty)-Satwiksairaj (Rankireddy) are our biggest challenges. They are consistent and always are in the semi-finals or final. Before I sleep, I will always watch Youtube videos of these pairs and study their matches.
“But when we play our best, we can give anyone a tough fight. We just have to focus on court and ensure we can keep our lead, besides managing how to deal with opponents changing strategy midgame,” he added.
Besides winning the Denmark Open, Soh-Chia have finished runners-up at the India, Indonesia and China Open this year.
The draw for the WTF will be held on Dec 11.
The competition format will see these eight pairs divided into two groups, with the top two pairs from each group advancing to the semis.
