China’s star shuttlers are to be tested by Thailand’s dark-horse women’s team and Indonesia’s men in the last four of the Uber and Thomas Cups, with Japan also grabbing spots in both semi-finals after a dramatic knockout stage on Thursday.
The prestigious biennial event has brought together 16 top teams from five continents for a week of intense competition in Bangkok for the men’s Thomas Cup and the women’s Uber Cup.
The day’s most exhilarating moment came when Thailand’s women edged into the final four, with Busanan Ongbamrungphan sparking jubilation among the home crowd by winning the final women’s singles 9-21, 12-21 to seal a 3-2 win against Indonesia.
Photo: AFP
Thailand’s star player, world No. 4 Ratchanok Intanon, started the tie well for the home side, demolishing Indonesia’s Fitriani Fitriani in the first game.
However, the visitors won the next two points, before a Thai doubles pair matched their score and Busanan finally broke the draw, sending her team rushing onto the court to embrace each other and dance before an ecstatic crowd.
“I am really happy that I can make one point for my team,” 22-year-old Busanan said.
However, taking on China — the reigning champions who have won the Uber cup 14 times — will be “very tough,” Busanan said.
In Thomas Cup action, China’s star-stacked men secured their final-four spot early in the day with a 3-0 wipeout of Taiwan.
The only stumble came when world No. 5 Chen Long dropped one game against Taiwan’s Chou Tien-chen, although he bounced back to finish the job 21-18, 10-21, 21-14.
A tense match to determine who would face top seeds China then followed between arch-rivals Malaysia and Indonesia — who were runners-up in the 2016 Thomas Cup.
Malaysia’s veteran player Lee Chong Wei stole the first point 21-19, 21-16 from Anthony Sinisuka Ginting, but Indonesia’s Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo — the world’s No. 1 doubles pair — put their nation back on track with a 21-19, 20-22, 21-13 win against Goh V Shem and Tan Wee Kiong.
Eying a shot at both trophies, Japan rolled into the semi-finals after their top-seeded women overcame an early scare from Taiwan and the men outclassed France 3-1.
The women clawed back a win following the first match 21-19, 21-16 defeat of world No. 2 Akane Yamaguchi by Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying, who ranks higher than her.
They rebounded with doubles pair Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota tearing through their rivals in the next match, followed by a routine 21-11, 21-12 win by singles world champion Nozomi Okuhara.
The women were to face South Korea yesterday, while the men were to have a rougher ride against Denmark — whose team made history in 2016 by becoming the first non-Asian country to take home the Thomas trophy.
The Danes on Thursday took down Korea 3-0 to continue their run at retaining the title.
World No. 1 Viktor Axelsen, who had lost a match the night before to Lee, regained his rhythm on Thursday to beat South Korea’s Son Wan-ho, who is one rank below him, 21-14, 14-21, 22-20.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier