Chloe Magee and Sam Magee had to wait until Thursday to go on court at All England, but it was worth waiting for.

The Irish world number 34 came into their opening match of the tournament being the underdog. The 2015 and 2019 European Games medallists faced Soon Huat Goh and Shevon Jemie Lai, Malaysia, who are seeded five in the tournament. In the two previous match ups the Malaysians have been the stronger pair.

The Irish pair, who is trying to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, won a close first game 21-19, and by controlling most of the second game, the secured a spot in the second round. The score of the straight games win was 21-19 21-16.

- We played well, probably the best we’ve ever played. I think we controlled the game really well, we never gave them any chances, Sam Magee said.

Quite rusty
The preparation for the Irish pair has been bumpy, and Chloe Magee is happy that they can deliver a good performance despite of not being much on court recently.

- The run-up to this event has been tough, obviously, due to the pandemic. We haven’t been able to go to tournaments as much as we’d have liked, Chloe Magee stated.

- We had Denmark Open in October and then we had nothing until Swiss Open, so we felt quite rusty. But it was good to play the Swiss Open to get our feeling back.

In the second round later on Thursday, the Magees will be facing Yuki Kaneko/Misaki Matsutomo from Japan. The pairs have met once before at the China Open 2019 where the Japanese came out on top.