KUALA LUMPUR: National mixed doubles pair Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai Jemie struggled for an hour to set aside Thai pair Dechapol Puavaranukroh-Supissara Paewsampran 22-20, 9-21, 21-18 in the first round of the 2025 All-England Badminton Championship at Utilita Arena, Birmingham today.
The top seeds were seen reminding each other to remain calm every time they won a point in the third set to secure their win and set up their second round match against Alexander Dunn-Julie Macpherson of Scotland
“Definitely for the first match, I really needed to set my mind straight and keep myself calm. I knew I couldn’t rush the game or be impatient. If you lose patience and start rushing, they will get easy points.
“In the second set, we made mistakes, rushed the game, and wanted to finish them off as soon as possible, which caused us to lose quite easily. In the third game, we reminded each other not to get ahead of ourselves, to stay calm with every shot, and that helped us,” Shevon said in an audio recording shared by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) to the media.
The married couple were the only Malaysian representatives that fared well at the tournament today, as other Malaysian shuttlers were shown the exit by their opponents in their matches today.
Hoo Pang Roon-Cheng Su Yin, the other Malaysian mixed doubles pair lost to South Korean pair Ki Dong Ju- Jeong Na Eun 17-21, 18-21, as did men’s singles player Leong Jun Hao, who lost to defending champion Jonatan Christie of Indonesia 11-21, 19-21, while men’s doubles Wan Muhammad Arif Junaidi-Yap Roy King, lost 18-21, 21-16, 17-21 to Chinese duo, Huang Di-Liu Yang.
