PPA Tour Asia’s Panas Malaysia Cup kicked off Wednesday evening with early round action in all five pro events.

One of the day’s most intriguing matches featured Ben Johns/Christian Alshon making their men’s doubles debut against Hien Truong/Quan Do. The top seeds actually trailed late in the deciding game, but they scored the final four points of the contest to come away with an 11-0, 9-11, 11-8 victory.

Johns gave some insight into navigating his first-time partnership with Alshon.

“I feel like we’ve been across the net from each other quite a few times, so we know what each other can do. Obviously, we both play our roles pretty well, and it seems like it can be pretty seamless playing together, so this partnership made a lot of sense,” he mentioned.

“Like Ben said, we know each other so well, so we just kind of try to play off of each other,” Alshon added. “It was a lot closer than I think either one of us thought it was gonna be, so PPA Asia, you guys are doing a really good job, especially here in Malaysia.”

The three-game thrillers weren’t exclusive to men’s doubles, however.

UPA Asia Trailblazer Marco Leung took down Grayson Goldin 11-9, 10-12, 11-9 in men’s singles, while Hsiang Wen Huang overcame an 0-9 deficit in the third game to defeat Hannah Blatt 10-12, 12-10, 13-11.

And in mixed doubles, Yufei Long/Hoang Nam Ly defeated Roos van Reek/Zane Navratil 7-11, 11-7, 11-6 to set a quarterfinal clash against Christian Alshon/Kaitlyn Christian.

Live quarterfinal coverage from Shah Alam will be available starting at 10pm ET Thursday evening on Pickleballtv.