England’s Ben Lane joked about missing the start of a holiday in Türkiye after he and Sean Vendy picked up their first win in six meetings over Olympic champions Lee Yang/Wang Chi-lin at DAIHATSU YONEX Japan Open 2022.

“We played well and stayed disciplined. It felt like a much tighter match-up in the second game, but we kept our heads and stuck to our strategy,” smiled Lane after the 21-18 21-18 victory. “If we win tomorrow, we will need to change our flights, we could miss the start of our holiday!”

After defeating world No.1s Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo at the TotalEnergies BWF World Championships 2022 in Tokyo last week, confidence has risen.

“On top of our great wins, we are one of the only pairs to beat new world champions Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik at the Commonwealth Games. This victory adds to our confidence.”

Vendy revealed their strategy was to attack the Chinese Taipei pair.

“That’s what won us the match. They have a solid defence and we knew the shuttles were going to come back but we kept smashing and breaking through. We didn’t come in with any expectations.”

The English pair take on fellow Europeans Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen in the quarterfinal. The Danes overcame Mark Lamsfuss/Marvin Seidel 21-10 21-17.

In a match of youth versus experience, Liang Wei Keng/Wang Chang surprised themselves to bag a spot in the quarterfinals after beating World Championships runners-up Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan in straight games.

“We are really proud of ourselves. They are our heroes, we’ve idolised them since a young age. Please tell them what we said,” said an elated Wang after the 21-18 21-16 win.

→ Results (Day 3)

→ Order of play (Day 4)