Ben Lane and Sean Vendy were unable to continue their fine record against Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto after suffering a second-round defeat at the VICTOR Denmark Open.
The men’s doubles duo won three of their first four meetings with the Indonesians, who spent 41 weeks at world No.1 and are presently sitting second in the world rankings.
Lane and Vendy made a great start when they met in Odense, winning the opening game 21-19, to threaten another top scalp.
The Englishmen were left chasing the second game but hauled themselves level at 16-16 before losing three successive points and going down 21-19.
Alfian and Ardianto leapt into an 11-5 lead in the decider but Vendy’s outstanding attacking play in particular kept him and his partner in the contest.
The 2023 YONEX All England champions had too much in the end, winning the rubber 21-19 to claim victory in an absorbing 70-minute clash.
Lane said: “I think we played a great match, it could have gone either way and we showed great fighting spirit to pull it back in the third game. They are world no.2 for a reason so we knew it was going to be a super tough match. Hopefully we can keep it up for the rest of the tour.”
Lane and Vendy will have been encouraged by their persistence in claiming a first round win over little-known Chinese pair Chen Bo Yang and Liu Yi.
The world No.18s were pegged back 21-12 in the second game, having won the first, but took the rubber 21-16 to register a valuable Super 750 success.
Other English involvement ended in the first round.
Greg and Jenny Mairs were handed a fearsome mixed doubles draw and stayed with top seeds Zheng Si Wei and Huang Ya Qiong in the first game, where they were edged out 22-20, and lost the second convincingly 21-10.
The mixed doubles draw was also not kind to Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith.
Ellis and Smith put in one of their best Super 750 performances in some time, taking the opening game off fifth seeds Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai, going on to lose 21-15 21-19.
