England’s top shuttlers will be eyeing up a good start to 2020 at this week’s Malaysia Masters as the quest to represent Great Britain at Tokyo 2020 continues. Ben Lane, Sean Vendy and Chris and Gabby Adcock will all be in action on the first stop of the 2020 BWF World Tour – Lane and Vendy in the men’s doubles, while the Adcocks will go for glory in the mixed competition.
Lane and Vendy, currently ranked 31st in the men’s doubles, will take on Min Chun Liao and Ching Heng Su of Taiwan in the first round of the competition, the English pair aiming to improve on their round-of-16 exit at the Syed Modi International Badminton Championships at the end of November. Their most recent success came in September at the YONEX Belgian International, the pair beating Bjarne Geiss and Jan Colin Völker of Germany 21-11, 21-14 in the final to claim the title. Meanwhile, the 12th world ranked mixed doubles couple, the Adcocks, will face the winner of Tuesday’s second qualification match in the first round.
The last time the pair were in action was at the YONEX-Sunrise Hong Kong Open in November, but they were knocked out by Indonesia’s Hafiz Faizal and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja in the round of 16. The reigning Commonwealth champions will be looking to bounce back from a disappointing end to 2019 in Malaysia, having first lost the YONEX Dutch Open final to Netherlands’ Robin Tabeling and Selena Piek in October before suffering a semi-final exit in the YONEX French Open to Indonesia’s Praveen Jordan and Melati Daeva Oktavianti later the same month.
The pair will also be hoping from an improvement on last year’s run in Malaysia. The Adcocks lost 18-21, 18-21 to Tabeling and Piek at the quarter-final stage after having beaten Malaysia’s Tan Kian Meng and Lai Pei Jing and Thailand’s Nipitphon Phuangphuapet and Savitree Amitrapai in their first outing of the year.
