Taiwanese badminton players Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and Chen Hung-ling (陳宏麟) yesterday won the men’s doubles title at the New Zealand Badminton Open for a second consecutive year, capping a great day for Wang, who had earlier won the mixed doubles title with Lee Chia-hsin (李佳馨).
Wang is the first Taiwanese male player in a decade to win two doubles titles at the tournament, following Chen, who did the same in 2008, while his win with Lee was the nation’s first in the mixed doubles event in nearly a decade.
Wang and Chen beat Indonesia’s Berry Angriawan and Hardianto Hardianto in straight sets, 21-17, 21-17.
They advanced to the final by defeating Tan Qiang (譚強) and He Jiting (何濟霆) on Saturday.
“We played very well as a combination today and all week, today Wang played a very good match and carried us to the win,’’ the New Zealand Herald quoted Chen as saying.
In the hard-fought final, third seeds Wang and Lee beat fifth-seeded South Korean Seo Seung-jae and Chae Yu-jung 2-1 (21-19, 14-21, 21-19) in 65 minutes.
“Playing the Koreans was quite difficult, we have played them before and lost twice, and we did not handle Seo’s game well at all. He has always been tough to counter,” Wang was quoted as saying.
“Our focus was to play one point at a time, keep consistent and not try to finish the game in one shot. We had to keep going until the final point to beat them,” he said. “We now look to the Asia Games in Indonesia with great confidence, but we will take that one game at a time.”
China’s two-time Olympic champion Lin Dan (林丹) won the men’s final, beating Indonesia’s Jonatan Christie 21-14, 21-19, while Japan’s Sayaka Takahashi beat unseeded Chinese player Zhang Yiman (張乙蔓) 21-13, 21-14 to take the women’s title.
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