Good showing by Vivian and Mei Kuan again

PETALING JAYA: Women’s doubles shuttlers Vivian Hoo and Chow Mei Kuan stand a good chance of being made a permanent pair following another strong display in the US Open this week.

They kicked off their campaign promisingly by powering past Americans Emily Kan-Isabel Zhong 21-9, 21-12 in the first round in Fullerton, California on Wednesday.

Vivian-Mei Kuan face Emilie Lefel-Anne Tran of France in the second round and their path looks clear until the semi-finals when they are expected to meet China’s Tang Jinhua-Yu Xiaohan.

Vivian and Mei Kuan have been more than impressive since starting off as a scratch combination in March to win the Vietnam International. A month later, they went on to win the Commonwealth Games gold in Gold Coast, Australia.

The US Open is the fourth time the duo are playing together after being also fielded in the Uber Cup Finals in Bangkok last month.

A decent outing in the US will definitely stake their claim to be permanent partners.

In the absence of Vivian’s regular partner Woon Khe Wei who’s still recovering from a knee injury, women’s doubles head coach Rosman Razak is actively testing out several new combinations.

Having played alongside Tee Jing Yi and Goh Yea Ching, the experiment is set to continue with Vivian being paired up with Soong Fie Cho for the Malaysian Open (June 26-July 1) and Yap Cheng Wen in the Indonesian Open (July 3-8).

Mixed doubles pair Chan Peng Soon-Goh Liu Ying are the other Malaysians in action this week.

The fifth seeds survived a 74-minute thriller against South Korea’s Seo Seung-jae-Chae Yu-jung 17-21, 21-19, 23-21 in the opening hurdle and will take on Koreans Kim Jaehwan-Kim So-yeong for a place in the last eight.