KUALA LUMPUR, May 20 — Professional mixed doubles pair Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai are determined to regain their place in the Road To Gold (RTG) programme.
However, Lai said that this time around they intend to compete in a calmer manner without placing excessive pressure on themselves to the extent that it affects their performance on court.
“Definitely, we will fight, but I think we leave it back on the court because previously we had experienced many times when we wanted it so badly (to enter RTG) that our game was disrupted due to psychological and emotional factors.
“So moving forward, we want to fight better than we had before, but with a different psychology,” she told the media after their match in the Malaysian Masters badminton championship today.
Yesterday, the RTG committee announced that Goh-Lai were no longer part of the programme after the pair failed to meet the required criteria of being ranked among the world’s top eight.
Earlier, in the opening round of the Malaysia Masters, the husband-and-wife pair advanced to the second round after defeating the United States' Francesca Corbett and Chen Zhi Yi 21-8, 21-16.
Commenting on today’s match, Lai said she was pleased with their performance and ready to face Taiwan’s Wu Guan Xun-Lee Chia Hsin in the second round tomorrow.
“Although we have a good record against them previously, we cannot underestimate them. So we will try to win that match,” she said.
Meanwhile, the hopes of two other national pairs, Hoo Pang Ron-Lai Pei Jing and Cheng Su Yin-Jimmy Wong, of progressing to the second round ended after they were eliminated in the opening round.
Hoo-Pei Jing lost to China’s Chen Xing-Zhang Chi 21-13, 12-21, 16-21, while Cheng-Wong were defeated by Mathias Christiansen-Alexandra Boje 21-13, 21-15.
