Justin goes down fighting at Austrian Open
PETALING JAYA: It was the end of the road for youngster Justin Hoh at the Austrian Open as he failed in his bid to secure a first quarter-final appearance in a senior tournament.
In the men’s singles, the 17-yearold Justin gave a good account of himself before losing 17-21, 25-23, 15-21 in 54 minutes to world No. 207 Panji Ahmad Maulana of Indonesia.
With barely two hours of rest, Justin teamed up with Fazriq Razif in the doubles but the duo found Denmark’s Mads-Pieler KoldingFrederik Sogaard too tough to handle.
Justin-Fazriq went down tamely 11-21, 12-21 in just 28 minutes to the Danes, ranked 246 in the world.
Although their campaign has ended, Justin and Fazriq should cherish the experience taking on higher ranked opponents yesterday.
Panji, 23, was a former Indonesian national player and part of the squad that claimed the team gold at the 2017 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games.
Justin and Fazriq should be able to gauge where they stand after playing against the Danes, whose 33-year-old doubles specialist Kolding is no pushover.
He was the partner of the now-retired Mads-Conrad Petersen and they were once ranked as high as the world No. 4.
Kolding also played for Denmark’s Thomas Cup winning side in 2016.
It was also over for another junior pair Goh Boon Zhe-Beh Chun Meng.
The semi-finalists at last week’s Slovenian International Series went down 20-22, 18-21 to Emil LauritzenMads Vestergaard of Denmark in the last 16.