PARIS, Aug 2 — After failing to crack through the 'Great Wall' of China to realise their dream of challenging for the gold medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the Malaysian men's doubles pair Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik are determined to fight for another precious bronze medal.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics bronze medallists lost 19-21, 21-15, 17-21 to the world's top pair Liang Wei Keng-Wang Chang from China in a fiercely contested semi-final.
They will next face a challenge from the world number two pair from Denmark, Kim Astrup-Anders Skaarup Rasmussen, in the bronze medal match on Sunday (August 4).
Chia said that although they missed the chance to go one up this time, a bronze medal was still very valuable and meaningful for the country.
“We have done our best, but sometimes we do o’t get the results we want. We had our gameplay correct, but the shots did not go right, and we made many unforced errors.
“We still have one more match, so we need to come up with the right gameplay because we want to bring home a medal,” he said after the match.
Meanwhile, Soh said they did not want to put too much pressure on themselves, given their experience of competing for the bronze medal in the previous edition.
“No matter what the outcome is, we will try to go all out. The match earlier was very intense, and we gave our best to challenge them, but maybe at crucial points or some moments, we rushed.
“We tried to regain focus, but towards the end, we could not control it, though we tried to calm down. I think they were better (at controlling the match and their emotions),” he said.
Another semi-final match saw defending champions Lee Yang-Wang Chi Lin from Taiwan come from a set down to defeat Astrup-Rasmussen 18-21, 21-17, 21-10.
In the semi-finals of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Chia-Soh were defeated by the Chinese pair Li Jun Hui-Liu Yu Chen before stunning former world champions Mohammad Ahsan-Hendra Setiawan from Indonesia to bring home the bronze medal.
— Bernama
