Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying won her group yesterday in the women’s singles badminton competition to advance to the 16-player elimination round, where she immediately faces a daunting challenge.
The 18-year-old, currently ranked 13th in the world and seeded 10th in London, won her three-player group as expected by defeating Victoria Montero of Mexico 21-6, 21-10.
Tai had previously defeated Anu Nieminen of Finland, also in straight games, to finish atop her group with a 2-0 record and book a spot in the knockout stage.
Photo: Reuters
In her next match, she faces third seed Li Xuerui, one of the three Chinese players expected to sweep the medals in the event.
Li may be the hottest of the three. She has won four of the past five singles events she has played in, the only blemish coming at the Indonesia Open in mid-June when she lost to Saina Nehwal of India in the final.
Tai has a puncher’s chance, having played well in spurts against the 21-year-old Chinese in two recent matches.
She lost 9-21, 21-16, 21-10 to Li at the All England Open on March 1 and 21-8, 21-19 at the French Open in October last year.
Taiwan’s other competitor in the women’s singles, Cheng Shao-chieh, also won in her group to advance to the elimination round.
Cheng, seeded seventh, won her three-player group by defeating Neslihan Yigit of Turkey 21-10, 21-6 yesterday.
Cheng had previously beaten Simone Prutsch of Austria, also in straight games.
In the women’s doubles, Taiwan’s “golden duo” of Chien Yu-chin and Cheng Wen-hsing came agonizingly close to clinching a place in the quarter-finals Monday, only to fall to the verge of elimination, but then pull qualification back from the brink yesterday.
Chien and Cheng lost to Jwala Gutt and Ashwini Ponnappa of India, 25-23, 16-21, 21-18 in the second of their three group matches and needed a convincing win over the top pairing in the group — Reika Kakiiwa and Mizuki Fujii of Japan — to have any chance of advancing.
The Taiwanese duo duly obliged by beating the Japanese pairing 21-19, 21-11 yesterday.
Against the Indian duo on Monday, Chien and Cheng took a late lead in the first game, only to squander three game points, a pivotal moment in the match.
“All I can say is that when we reached 22, it’s really too bad that I missed my serve,” a frustrated Cheng said, admitting that they played too passively when they were ahead.
After rebounding to win the second game, the Taiwanese pulled to within 19-18 in the final game and Cheng had a clear shot close to the net to even the score. Instead, she mishit the shuttlecock, sending it into the net.
The match ended a point later.
“The shuttlecock was very close to the net and I was afraid my racket would hit it, so I pulled the racket back too quickly,” Cheng said.
Head coach Liao Kuo-mao said it was a match Chien and Cheng should have won, but did not, leaving him very disappointed.
“We made too many unforced errors,” he said. “If we had taken the first set, we would probably be the ones who are happy now.”
Chien and Cheng were ranked world No. 1 in women’s doubles as recently as April last year, but a run of bad form sent their ranking tumbling to 11th and they were not seen as medal favorites.
In the men’s singles, Hsu Jen-hao was beaten 21-14, 21-10 by Son Wan-ho of South Korea yesterday and eliminated from the competition.
Taiwanese athletes in action
Tuesday, July 31
Archery
Men’s individual
Kuo Cheng-wei defeated Ahmed El-Nemr of Egypt 6-2 in the round-of-16.
Women’s individual
Tan Ya-ting defeated Elena Richter of Germany 6-2 in the round-of-16.
Carina Christiansen of Denmark defeated Le Chien-ying 6-4 in the round-of-16.
Badminton
Men’s singles Group H
Son Wan-ho of South Korea defeated Hsu Jen-hao 21-14, 21-10.
Women’s singles Group K
Tai Tzu-ying defeated Victoria Montero of Mexico 21-6, 21-10.
Women’s singles Group C
Cheng Shao-chieh defeated Neslihan Yigit of Turkey 21-10, 21-6.
Women’s doubles Group B
Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa of India defeated Cheng Wen-hsing and Chien Yu-chin 25-23, 16-21, 21-18.
Cheng Wen-hsing and Chien Yu-chin defeated Mizuki Fujii and Reika Kakiiwa of Japan 21-19, 21-11.
Rowing
Men’s singles sculls
Wang Ming-hui finished 1st in semi-final F and he progresses to final E.
Sailing
Men’s RS-X
Chang Hao finished 36th of 38 in race 1 and 36th of 38 in race 2.
Swimming
Women’s 200m butterfly heats
Cheng Wan-jung finished 28th out of 28 and was eliminated.
Table Tennis
Men’s singles
Chuang Chih-yuan defeated Andrej Gacina of Croatia 4-2 in the fourth round.
Weightlifting
Women’s under-58kg
Kuo Hsing-chun finished eighth after lifting 99kg in the snatch and 129kg in the clean and jerk.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
A soccer jersey carrying a national map including disputed Western Sahara has become a hot commodity in Morocco after a diplomatic dispute with Algeria. Retailers said RS Berkane jerseys have been flying off the shelves after a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup match against Algerian club USM Alger was canceled last month over the jerseys. “We are overwhelmed by the influx of messages and requests,” said Brahim Rabii, representative of the official RS Berkane jersey distributor. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, partly over the issue of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed