Son Wan Ho takes on unseeded Indian shuttler Ajay Jayaram in the Men's singles quarter-final of 207 Malaysia Open badminton at the Jalan Stadium in Kuching on Friday.
The fifth seed eased past Indonesia's Tommy Sugiarto 21-15, 21-15 in just 38 minutes in his R16 match yesterday. On the other hand, Ajay stunned world number two Viktor Axelsen in a tightly-fought match that extended to 44 minutes. After losing the first game, the world number 20 bounced back to take the match 9-21, 21-14, 21-19 and book a berth in the last-eight round.
It will be an important quarter-final outing for Son as the South Korean shuttler has not had the best of starts to his new season. The world number five, who impressed with his outing at Robot Asia Mixed Team Championships in February, has suffered shocking first-round losses at All England Championships and India Open.
On the other hand, Ajay also exited last month's India Open after first-round defeat to Axelsen. However, he has claimed a "sweet revenge" over the Danish shuttler, who went on to win the Superseries title in India, by dumping him out of the ongoing tournament with a strong show yesterday. Also, the 30-year-old ousted last year's Korea Open winner Qiao Bin in the opening round and is looking good to progress further in Malaysia.
Son has never lost to Ajay in the past, winning all their three earlier meetings so far but the South Korean has to be at his best to go past the in-form Indian shuttler, who is high on confidence after strong performances in the first two rounds.
TV Schedule
India: Star Sports 2
Malaysia: Astro Supersport
Singapore: StarHub Sports
