China swamped their opposition in the quarterfinals of the BANK OF NINGBO Badminton Asia Championships 2024, winning 13 of 14 matches.
They particularly dominated the women’s singles, assuring themselves of gold with four home players in the semifinals.
The big result on the day was top seed An Se Young’s upset by He Bing Jiao, preventing the Korean from winning one of the few titles to elude her so far. He broke a sequence of seven straight losses to An with the 21-17 21-18 result, earning a last-four place against Wang Zhi Yi. The other semifinal will see second seed Chen Yu Fei against sixth seed Han Yue after Chen held off Gregoria Mariska Tunjung and Han scored her first win over Akane Yamaguchi in six career meetings.
“Before the match, I’d done a lot of preparation for the difficulties I would encounter, including the mental challenges,” said He. “Today, I played quite patient and made few mistakes. I’m very happy to win after so many consecutive losses.”
An acknowledged she had been outplayed.
“I didn’t get used to the court well today and made a lot of mistakes. He played so well that it affected my confidence. She was confident. I must work hard to improve myself.”
The only match out of 14 that China lost was in men’s doubles, with Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik dismissing Liu Yu Chen/Ou Xuan Yi 21-14 21-15. With their compatriots Goh Sze Fei/Nur Izzuddin edging past Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin 19-21 21-19 21-19, it will be an all-Malaysian semifinal.
The other half will see in-form Chinese Taipei duo Lee Jhe-Huei/Yang Po-Hsuan against home pair Wang Chang/Liang Wei Keng.
Chia/Soh face their teammates next.
Other Highlights
» Top seed Shi Yu Qi beat world champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn for the third straight time, 22-20 21-13, to set up a showdown with Jonatan Christie.
» All England champion Christie stopped a sequence of four straight losses to Lee Zii Jia, demolishing his challenge in 34 minutes, 21-11 21-6.
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