It took Loh Ziheng and Noraqilah Maisarah Ramdan just 22 minutes to be on court.
But it was enough for them to progress into the Mixed Doubles Round of 16 PETRONAS Malaysia International Series 2025 at the Indoor Arena Educity Sports Complex here in Johor.
“The focus was always on the next point and not on those that we missed – that was important,” said Ziheng.
Added Noraqilah: “we also keep on pushing each other during the game and that gave us the courage to stay calm and focus throughout the game.”
The pair of 18-year-olds, who had captured the Malaysia Junior International Challenge earlier in the year, were in an unyielding mood when they eased past the pair of Nicky Aung Yemin from Canada and Sirapat Tepnarong from Thailand in their first game of the tournament.
The opponents for the fourth-seeded Ziheng and Noraqilah tomorrow would be Alden Putra Mainaky and Violita Dewi from Indonesia.
Alden-Violita were 19-21, 21-12, 21-15 victorious in their Round of 32 clash over Malaysian duo, Isyraf Hafizin-Rachel Tan.
In the meantime, the hope of top-seeded Ashraf Daniel Md. Zakaria and Lim Xuan of making the next round fell short of the target when they were denied by Ng Ming-Zhe-Jessie Lua Le En from Singapore.
Ashraf-Lim walked away 21-13, 21-19 winners to book their place in the Round of 16 tomorrow.
ENDS
