KUALA LUMPUR: Independent mixed doubles shuttlers Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai are unperturbed about the threats from emerging new combinations after the Paris Olympics.
This motivates the husband-wife pair to work harder on the World Tour. And the World No. 10 ended their losing streak by beating World No. 20 Hiroki Midorikawa-Natsu Saito 21-16, 21-13 to reach the semi-finals of the Kumamoto Masters in Japan today.
Though Soon Huat-Shevon had lost to the Japanese pair on four previous occasions, they played confidently this time to come out on top.
Soon Huat-Shevon will meet Dechapol Puavaranukroh-Supissara Paewsampran in the semi-finals, and this will be their second meeting against the Thai new combination.
Dechapol-Supissara ousted young Malaysian pair Hoo Pang Ron-Cheng Su Yin 21-17, 21-16 in a quarter-final encounter.
Dechapol used to be a great rival of Soon Huat-Shevon with his former partner Sapsiree Taerattanachai. Sapsiree, who won the 2021 world title with Dechapol, teamed up with Supissara's former partner, Supak Jomkoh, after the Olympics.
Soon Huat-Shevon have beaten Dechapol-Supissara in their only meeting, at the Arctic Open in Finland last month.
Shevon welcomed the emergence of new pairs which would keep them on their toes.
"I believe this is a good challenge for us to keep improving," she said.
"The semis will be against a pair we have played before, and of course every match is a new game. So we just have to prepare our mindset and condition ourselves to match them on court.
"Against Midorikawa-Saito today, our mindset was to be calm and focused on pacing our momentum. We didn't rush and that helped us to secure our first win against them."
Top countries like South Korea, Japan, Thailand and China have been experimenting with different combinations, leading to the emergence of young pairs in recent times.
The absence of top pairs from China, including Olympic champions Zheng Si Wei-Huang Ya Qiong, at the Kumamoto Masters, could see Soon Huat-Shevon landing another title.
Soon Huat-Shevon have won the Malaysia Masters and Swiss Open apart from finishing second at the China Open this year.