Max Flynn and Ethan van Leeuwen reached the quarter-finals of the Swedish Open after coming through two hard-fought matches in Uppsala.
The English pair started against Thailand’s Tanadon Punpanich and Wachirawit Sothon and played out an epic encounter, eventually prevailing 21-19, 24-22 in a clash which was nip-and-tuck throughout.
Flynn and van Leeuwen then continued their momentum by disposing of Czech second seeds Jaromir Janacek and Tomas Svejda 21-16, 21-18, coming from 14-10 down in the second game to close out an impressive victory.
Their progress was halted in the last eight as Malaysia’s Chang Yee Jun and Roy King Yap won in straight games (21-15, 21-17), though Flynn and van Leeuwen can be pleased with their week’s work.
In the women’s doubles, Grace King and Annie Lado came through their first-round match in three games to set up a challenging contest with Christine Busch and Amalie Schulz.
The Danish pair, seeded second, took the opening game 21-15 but King and Lado battled hard in the second, which was all to play for at 9-9.
Busch and Schulz pulled away from there, however, to replicate the score from the first game and book their place in the last eight.
It was a similar story for Lado in the mixed doubles, in which she played alongside Rory Easton.
Easton and Lado triumphed 21-19 in a tense first-round decider but found Danish fourth seeds Kristian Kraemer and Amalie Cecilie Kudsk too hot to handle, going down 15-21, 17-21.
Freya Redfearn, seeded fifth in the women’s singles, also fell at the second-round stage. Redfearn breezed past Anna Mikhalkova in straight games first up but Malaysia’s Myisha Mohd Khairul emerged victorious 21-18, 21-14 in the last 16.
