Lee Zii Jia needed to go the distance against home crowd favourite Liao Jhuo-fu to reach the second round of badminton‘s Taipei Open 2026 on Wednesday (29 July).
In his typical fashion, Lee got the job done the hard way, winning 22-24, 21-12, 21-15 and plugging in more than an hour versus the Chinese Taipei shuttler.
In the first set, Lee twice had game point but could not close the deal, allowing Liao to steal the last three points to go up 1-0.
Lee managed to wake up after that, staying in the lead throughout the second game to force a third.
After exchanging points early on, Lee gradually pulled away from 7-7 to secure passage to the last 16, where he will face either Anthony Sinisuka Ginting or another home opponent in All England champion Lin Chun-yi.