Singapore badminton doubles pair of Nge and Prajogo advance to Asian Games quarter-finals

HANGZHOU: Youngsters Nge Joo Jie and Johann Prajogo will be Singapore’s only representatives in the quarter-finals of the badminton tournament at the Asian Games after they eased to victory on Wednesday (Oct 4).

At the Binjiang Gymnasium, the doubles pair of Nge and Prajogo, both 19, beat Nepal’s Jivan Acharya and Bishnu Katuwal 21-11, 21-4 in 19 minutes.

“We played how we wanted to play,” said Prajogo.

“We’ve been fortunate with this (Games) draw. We just want to take this chance and do our best,” added Nge.

Months after facing the biggest opponents of their budding careers at the SEA Games in the form of Indonesia’s Yeremia Rambitan and Pramudya Kusumawardana (world No 21), the Singaporean pair will get the chance to go head to head against one of the world’s top men's pairs.

They face India’s of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty in the last eight on Thursday. The Indian pair are ranked third in the world, while the Singaporeans are 103 spots below.

“From the SEA Games, we can see that we can at least stand our ground, play our game and make the scores quite close,” said Prajogo.

“We’ll do the same tomorrow. We’ll just focus point by point and not think about the outcome.”

A win would guarantee the pair at least a joint-bronze.

In the men’s singles round of 16, Singapore’s Jason Teh fell 21-14, 21-18 to Indonesia’s top seed and world No 2 Anthony Ginting.

This was the first career meeting between the world No 83 and Ginting, with the 26-year-old taking the victory in 42 minutes.

Teh was Singapore’s lone representative in the men's singles event after Loh Kean Yew was eliminated from the round of 32 after a loss to Malaysia’s Ng Tze Yong on Tuesday.

In the women’s singles, world number 22 Yeo Jia Min gave China's Chen Yufei