Taiwanese badminton player Chiu Pin-chian yesterday won her first Super 300 title, beating Vietnam’s Nguyen Thuy Linh in straight sets at the Korea Masters in Iksan, South Korea.
Twenty-six-year-old world No. 20 Chiu, who was the top seed at the event, knocked out second seed and world No. 24 Nguyen 21-16, 21-15 in just 39 minutes at the Wonkwang University Cultural and Sports Center.
The victory was not only her first Super 300 title, but the first time she has made it to a final since the Ruiching China Masters Super 100 tournament in March last year.
Photo: Screen grab from Taipower Badminton’s Facebook page
Chiu was knocked out in the quarter-finals of the past two tournaments, the Denmark Open and the Arctic Open, both last month.
She on Saturday rallied to defeat Indonesia’s Ni Kadek Dhinda Amartya Pratiwi 19-21, 21-19, 21-8 to reach her first Super 300 final.
Chiu dropped the first game in her first meeting with Pratiwi. Trailing 15-16 in the second, she won four straight points to take control and force a deciding game, when she pulled away with a nine-point run to seal a 21-8 victory.
Photo: CNA
Following the retirement of former world No. 1 Tai Tzu-ying, Chiu rose to be Taiwan’s highest-ranked female shuttler.
Tai fell from world No. 5 after not playing a tournament since September last year.
She officially announced her retirement on Friday, bringing to a close one of Taiwan’s greatest sports runs, after she topped the women’s singles rankings for a record 214 weeks from December 2016 to September 2022.
Chiu sits just ahead of compatriot Lin Hsiang-ting in the world rankings, while Sung Shuo-yun is ranked 30th.
Chiu is tomorrow to start her Kumamoto Masters Japan campaign, where she is seeded seventh, while Lin is seeded eighth.
In the men’s singles, Taiwanese badminton star Chou Tien-chen is seeded second and Lin Chun-yi is seeded fifth.
In men’s doubles, Lee Jhe-huei and Yang Po-hsuan are seeded fifth, and Chiu Hsiang-chieh and Olympic gold medalist Wang Chi-lin are seeded sixth.
In women’s doubles, Hsieh Pei-shan and Hung En-tzu are seeded fifth.
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