Rui Chen aims to go all the way after making semi-finals

ULU KINTA: Yap Rui Chen (pic) created the biggest upset in the women’s singles at the National Championships, sending third seed Lee Ying Ying packing to reach the semi-finals.

The 21-year-old national discard beat Ying Ying, the 2015 world junior runner-up, 10-21, 22-20, 21-15 in 57 minutes at the Sri Perdana Hall in Ulu Kinta yesterday. She next faces M. Thinaah.

The other semi-final is between top seed Ho Yen Mei and fourth seed Lim Yin Fun.

Rui Chen, a niece of former Olympic silver medallist Yap Kim Hock, now aims to be the first non-Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) player to win the national women’s singles title.

“I was dropped by BAM in 2015 because of a knee injury. All the physiotherapy did not work then,” said Rui Chen, whose father Yap Ben Tong is Kim Hock’s brother.

“I still feel pain in my knee but I got used to it.

“I’m very motivated to take my game to the next level,” added Rui Chen, who bagged the fourth-tier Hungary International Challenge and fifth-tier Norwegian International Series last year.