PARIS, Aug 30 — National badminton champion Cheah Liek Hou and his teammate Muhammad Fareez Anuar will have a chance to book their slots in the semi-finals of the SU5 men’s singles event (physical disability) at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, today.

PARIS, Aug 30 — National badminton champion Cheah Liek Hou and his teammate Muhammad Fareez Anuar will have a chance to book their slots in the semi-finals of the SU5 men’s singles event (physical disability) at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, today.

Liek Hou who is here with the mission of defending the gold and Muhammad Fareez showed their prowess by defeating their respective opponents to secure a place in the semi-finals at the Porte de la Chapelle Arena.

Liek Hou will continue the competition in Group A by taking on home favourite Meril Loquette, tomorrow after easily burying Polish player Bartlomiej Mroz 21-10, 21-6 in 26 minutes during today’s opening round action.

Muhammad Fareez’s awesome 21-14, 21-18 victory against second seeded Fang Jen-Yu from Taiwan, can serve as the best tonic for the Malaysian when facing world number three, Dheva Anrimusthi from Indonesia in a Group B match.

Burhanuddin and Noor Azwan Noorlan-Muhammad Ikhwan Ramli who played in the men’s doubles event WH1-2 (physical disability) against their respective opponents tomorrow revived their chances to the semi-finals.

Mohd Amin started his campaign on the wrong foot when he lost 17-21, 21-15, 22-20 to Indian player, Sukant Kadam in a Group B match while Noor Azwan-Muhammad Ikhwan fell to Japanese pair Daiki Kajiwara-Hiroshi Murayama 17-21, 21-13, 21-16 in a Group B meeting.

National cycling champion, Mohamad Yusof Hafizi Shaharuddin failed to meet the target of at least advancing to the final after being stranded in the qualifying round of the 3,000m individual pursuit men C1 (physical disability) finishing in fifth place with a time of 3 minutes 55.254 seconds.

Two national archers also showed positive performances since 2019 world archery champion S. Suresh will see action in the men’s open individual recurve event and in the women’s individual compound event, Nur Jannaton Abdul Jalil made a personal best record in the ranking round at Invalides.

Suresh finished in 12th place with 625 points and Nur Jannaton finished in 24th place (649 points) but the strong wind affected the pace of G. Daneshen’s performance who finished in 31st place out of 32 archers with 666 points in the open men’s individual compound event.

Hangzhou 2022 Para Asian Games silver medalist Lee Chee Hoong who played in Group E of the BC2 men’s individual event was beaten 2-11 by Muhammad Bintang Herlangga from Indonesia while Abdul Razzaq Abdul Rahman received the same fate, losing heavily at the hands of Great Britain’s representative, Stephen McGuire, 0-8 during the men’s BC4 Group C action. — Bernama