BWF Arctic Open 2024: Lee Zii Jia, Jonatan Christie reach last eight in Finland
The two seeded Southeast Asian players each recorded straight-games wins to secure a spot in the quarter-finals on Friday.
Badminton
Malaysia's badminton world number four Lee Zii Jia will face Japan's Watanabe Koki in the quarter-finals of the BWF Arctic Open 2024 in Vantaa, Finland, after easily coming through his second-round clash on Thursday (10 October).
Third-seeded Lee, who is the men's singles defending champion at the Arctic Open, beat Watanabe's compatriot Tanaka Yushi 21-11, 21-18 in straight games.
The Malaysian controlled the opening game, but had to come from five points down in the second to hold off Tanaka, the world number 30.
With Watanabe beating People's Republic of China's Lu Guangzu, the stage is set for the third career meeting between the two, and it will be available to watch live on Olympic Channel via Olympics.com and the official Olympics app for mobile devices (territorial restrictions may apply).
Watanabe has won the previous two, with the world number 14 having beaten Lee at this year's China Open first round last month as well as the 2023 Swiss Open.
Indonesian fifth seed Jonatan Christie has also reached the quarter-finals in Vantaa.
Christie breezed past India's Kiran George 21-17, 21-8 in just 38 minutes, completely dominating the second game of the contest.
The Indonesian tallied the last 11 points of the match in a row to close out victory and keep his hopes alive of winning his second title this year following his All England triumph in March.
After back-to-back semi-final appearances at the Hong Kong Open and China Open, can Christie finally reach his second final of the year?