Singapore badminton doubles pair of Nge and Prajogo advance to Asian Games quarter-finals
Singapore's Nge Joo Jie and Johann Prajogo. (Photo: SportSG/Weixiang Lim)
HANGZHOU: Youngsters Nge Joo Jie and Johann Prajogo will be Singapore’s only representatives in the quarter-finals of the badminton tournament at the Asian Games after they eased to victory on Wednesday (Oct 4).
At the Binjiang Gymnasium, the doubles pair of Nge and Prajogo, both 19, beat Nepal’s Jivan Acharya and Bishnu Katuwal 21-11, 21-4 in 19 minutes.
“We played how we wanted to play,” said Prajogo.
“We’ve been fortunate with this (Games) draw. We just want to take this chance and do our best,” added Nge.
Months after facing the biggest opponents of their budding careers at the SEA Games in the form of Indonesia’s Yeremia Rambitan and Pramudya Kusumawardana (world No 21), the Singaporean pair will get the chance to go head to head against one of the world’s top men's pairs.
They face India’s of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty in the last eight on Thursday. The Indian pair are ranked third in the world, while the Singaporeans are 103 spots below.
“From the SEA Games, we can see that we can at least stand our ground, play our game and make the scores quite close,” said Prajogo.
“We’ll do the same tomorrow. We’ll just focus point by point and not think about the outcome.”
A win would guarantee the pair at least a joint-bronze.
In the men’s singles round of 16, Singapore’s Jason Teh fell 21-14, 21-18 to Indonesia’s top seed and world No 2 Anthony Ginting.
This was the first career meeting between the world No 83 and Ginting, with the 26-year-old taking the victory in 42 minutes.
Teh was Singapore’s lone representative in the men's singles event after Loh Kean Yew was eliminated from the round of 32 after a loss to Malaysia’s Ng Tze Yong on Tuesday.
In the women’s singles, world number 22 Yeo Jia Min gave China's Chen Yufei a huge scare early on, but eventually succumbed 21-19, 7-21, 9-21 in 58 minutes.
Chen, is the reigning Olympic champion and world No 3.
“I have to be a bit more quick in how I adapt to difficulties on court,” said Yeo. “Now I’m still not really matured enough to deal with the situations, I have to work on that.”
In the mixed doubles, the pair of Terry Hee and Jessica Tan were beaten by Hong Kong’s Tang Chun Man and Tse Ying Suet.
The Singaporean pair, who have never beaten Tang and Tse, went down 21-7, 21-11.
“Our opponents played very well today,” said Tan. “They were very good in controlling their rhythm and breaking our momentum … Throughout the game, they played at a pace that we just weren’t able to break out of.”
Hee and Tan, who won the Commonwealth Games gold last year, are ranked 30th in the world, while their opponents are 10 spots above them.
“It’s quite sad that we ended our Games like this because it’s not the way we want to play,” added Hee.
