PARIS: National para shuttler Muhammad Fareez Anuar maintained his unbeaten run in the 2024 Paris Paralympics after defeating Japan’s Taiyo Imai in the final Group B fixture at Porte de La Chapelle Arena here today.
Muhammad Fareez, however, had to fight back from a game down to dispatch Imai 17-21, 21-17, 21-17 in 72 minutes to advance to the semi-finals as Group B champion.
The 28-year-old Malaysian Paralympic debutant admitted that he was quite slow in the first game as he kept thinking about winning and topping the group.
“I was distracted in the first game, thinking too much about winning the group. In the second game, my coach (Nova Armada) told me to speed things up and I went all out,” he said when met at the mixed zone.
The Johor shuttler, who has a disability in his right elbow due to a motorcycle accident at the age of 15, could hardly believe he managed to advance to the semi-finals after being drawn in the “group of death” with world number two Fang Jen-Yu and world’s third best Dheva Anrimusthi of Indonesia.
“This achievement of reaching the semi-finals is already good enough for me.
I came here as the underdog but, Alhamdulillah, I overcame all the challenges,” he said.
On Thursday (Aug 29), world number four Muhammad Fareez stunned second-seeded Jen-Yu 21-14, 21-18 before overcoming Anrimusthi, the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Para Games champion, 14-21, 21-19, 21-19 yesterday.
Anrimusthi also moved into the semi-finals after outplaying Jen-Yu 21-14, 21-18 to finish second in Group B.
Meanwhile, Muhammad Ikhwan Ramli’s challenge in the men’s singles WH1 (physical impairment) category came to an end when he failed to advance to the quarter-finals from Group B after going down 7-21, 4-21 to China’s Qu Zi Mo in just 21 minutes.
Noor Azwan Noorlan, competing in the men’s singles WH2 (physical impairment) category, also endured a disappointing maiden campaign when he lost 11-21, 11-21 to Hong Kong’s Ho Yuen Chan after going down 15-21, 13-21 to Chile’s Jamie Aranguiz yesterday in Group D.
Earlier, Muhammad Ikhwan-Noor Azwan notched their first win in the men’s doubles WH1-2 (physical impairment) category when they defeated Germany’s Rick Cornell Hellman-Thomas Wandschneider 21-19, 21-17 in Group B.
However, the result was meaningless for them as they had already been eliminated from Group B after losing to Japan’s Daiki Kajiwara-Hiroshi Murayama 21-17, 13-21, 16-21 and China’s Qu Zi Mo-Mai Jianpeng 16-21, 6-21.
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