Australia and New Zealand dominated proceedings today at the Victor Oceania Championships 2017, booking all the semi-final spots.
Australia assured themselves of the Women’s Singles title with top seed Hsuan-Yu Wendy Chen, second seed Joy Lai, Jennifer Tam and Tiffany Ho making the semi-finals in the opening session.
In Men’s Singles, it will be up to New Zealand’s Niccolo Tagle (featured image) to prevent Australia from taking the title. Tagle fought past second seed Anthony Joe (Australia) in his quarter-final, 21-9 19-21 21-17.
Tagle faces Jacob Schueler, while in the other semi-final, top seed Pit Seng Low takes on Daniel Fan, who surprised third seed Ashwant Gobinathan 15-21 22-20 21-19.
The two Men’s Doubles semi-finals will be Australia-New Zealand affairs. Top seeds Matthew Chau/Sawan Serasinghe (Australia) eased past compatriots Michael Fariman/Eric Vuong and will next face New Zealand’s Jonathan Curtin/Dhanny Oud, while in the other half, New Zealand’s Kevin Dennerly-Minturn/Niccolo Tagle take on Australia’s Simon Wing Hang Leung/Mitchell Wheller.
Women’s Doubles top seeds Gronya Somerville/Setyana Mapasa routed New Zealand’s Erena Calder-Hawkins/Jasmin Chung Man Ng 21-6 21-6 in the quarter-finals. Another New Zealand pair, Susannah Leydon-Davis/Danielle Tahuri, stand between them and a place in the final.
In Mixed Doubles, Kevin Dennerly-Minturn/Danielle Tahuri are the only non-Australian pair left in the last four. They have a potentially difficult semi-final lined up, against to seeds Sawan Serasinghe/Setyana Mapasa. The other semi-final pits Joel Findlay/Gronya Somerville against Mitchell Wheller/Hsuan-Yu Wendy Chen.
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