XD – Day 3: English pairs advanced by stopping seeded pairs

Zheng/Huang and Puavaranuhkroh/Taerattanachai in contrasted victories

Top two seeds, Zheng/Huang and Puavaranuhkroh/Taerattanachai, won their round 2 matches against Hong Kong’s Chang/Ng and China’s Lu/Chen, respectively.

On one hand, the World ranked number 1 Chinese pair cruised through 21-18 21-12 and will face Tan/Lai from Malaysia next, who defeated Thailand’s Rivaldy/Mentari 9-21 21-18 22-20. On the other hand, the Thai suffered a tough match. They fought back from a 6-11 deficit in the deciding game and upset their opponents 21-10 17-21 21-15.

Fantastic performance of England's Lane/Pugh and the Adcocks

Ben Lane and Jessica Pugh, world ranked number 27, faced the eight-seeded pair Indonesia’s Hafiz Feizal and Gloria Emmanuelle Widjaja. The mission sounded tough but was fully completed.

After a 11-5 lead at the mid-interval, the English controlled the opening game. Despite the Indonesian forced them to go to a third game, Lane/Pugh stayed solid and won the match 21-12 17-21 21-15.

“We knew exactly how we needed to play in order to beat them today. Obviously, they are a very ranked pair. So, we had to come out and play everything perfect. That’s what we needed. We did that today. That’s why we won.” underlined Jessica in the mixed zone after the match.

The Adocks also played a solid long 3-game match. They eventually beat the Korean Seo/Chae 23-21 18-21 21-14.

Joachim Fischer Nielsen, former Danish champion, who recently started to coach the English pairs shared the first part of his work.

“You have to fight with everything you have. They give everything when they go on court and they play the match like it’s gonna be the last in their life everytime. I want them to have this motivation. ”

Other European pairs out

The other European pair Tabeling/Piek from Netherlands was stopped by the third-seeded pair from Japan Watanabe/Higanisha 21-14 19-21 21-8.

“It’s very disappointing to lose here. We really wanted to the next round. But you clearly see the state of the game in the third. They played a much more attacking game and we were a little bit lost. Therefore, we weren't able to be in control.” said Selena Piek after the match.

“It’s gonna be tough when you get on court. After we won the second, I was feeling OK. We are playing a good game but in the third, after 11-7 they were too solid.” added Robin Tabeling

Jordan/Oktavianti from Indonesia and Hoki/Nagahara from Japan stopped the last European pairs – respectively Denmark’s Christiansen/Bøje (19-21 21-15 21-13) and Germany’s Lamfuss/Herrtrich (21-18 21-16).

Only English pairs will then try to shake the Asian leaders in the quarter finals.

See all the results of the mixte doubles draw here. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.