Chou Tien-chen established himself as Taiwan’s premier badminton player on Sunday, when he upset his Chinese opponent to win his country’s first men’s singles title in the BWF World Superseries.
The 24-year-old came from behind to beat Wang Zhengming 10-21, 25-23, 21-19 in the Yonex French Open 2014 final in Paris.
After clinching the match point, Chou lay on the court before getting up and shouting in joy as he threw his racket toward the crowd, which had been rooting for him for much of the game.
It was Chou’s first win against Wang in three encounters. The Chinese player, also 24, is seventh in the BWF World Rankings, while Chou is 13th after rising steadily in the rankings over the past year.
Until Sunday, the best results a Taiwanese male player had achieved in the BWF World Superseries were in 2009 and 2012, when Hsieh Yu-hsing and Hsu Jen-hao reached the men’s singles semi-finals respectively.
Chou got a shot at his first BWF World Superseries title by stunning No. 4 seed Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia 14-21, 21-18, 21-19 in the semi-finals on Saturday last week.
In that contest, Chou showed great maturity against his more experienced rival, according to the BWF Web site.
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