The national feather men's doubles "single seedling" Lick Olympic third place, women's singles three into the quarterfinals

He Jiting (left) and Tan Qiang in the game. Image source: BWF official Weibo

In the early morning of Beijing time on the 17th, the Badminton World Championships ended the third round of competition in Huelva, Spain. In the men's doubles competition, China's "only seedling" He Jiting / Tan Lilike, a bronze medalist at the Tokyo Olympics and a famous Malaysian player, Xie Dingfeng / Su Weiyi. Except for the mixed doubles, which has been "completely destroyed" after two rounds, the other four individual events have Chinese players advancing to the top 8.

Guo Yu has four men's doubles pairs competing in the World Championships this time, but because the two pairs with higher rankings in the world have not been able to participate due to the retirement of the players, the individual event is not optimistic before the competition. After two rounds, three pairs of players have been eliminated, and only He Jiting/Tan Qiang, who are ranked 24th in the world, are in the round of 16.

In this round, the two have a strong opponent - No. 4 seeds Xie Dingfeng / Su Weiyi, who just eliminated another Chinese duo, Ou Xuanyi / Zhang Nan, in the second round. In the first set, He Jiting/Tan Qiang always trailed, losing 17-21. In the second set, the two overcame the glue of the opening game, gradually shrugging off the opponent after the two sides fought to 5 draws, and equalized the set 21-14.

In the decider, the Chinese duo rose to catch up with 0-4, scored 8 consecutive points to achieve a rebound, and finally went down 21-16. After the game, He Jiting concluded that he and his partner defended more smoothly in this game, and did not give up when encountering difficulties, "Dare to 'top' with the other side, fight one point at a time, and find a way to reverse the situation." Tan Qiang said that no matter which round, the goal of the two is to play at all levels, "whether you win or lose, you must do your best." ”

In the quarter-finals, the Chinese duo will play against another Malaysian pair, Rio Runner-up Chen Weiqiang/Wu Weisheng. Tan Qiang said that the other party is a veteran, and the two must hold the mentality of "fighting" and do their own well first.

In the men's singles match, Zhao Junpeng beat Vietnamese Irish player Nguyen Il 2-1 to reserve a place in the top 8 for Guoyu. Lu Guangzu failed to continue to play the "dark horse" and was swept out by the 12th seed and India's oscar Srikante 0-2.

In the women's singles competition, three Chinese players advanced. As the world's highest-ranked women's singles player in the team, He Bingjiao, the No. 8 seed of the tournament, swept the No. 13 seed 21-13, 21-10, and the 24-year-old Danish "first sister" Mia. After the game, He Bingjiao said that she performed well in the opening stage, and after establishing a leading edge, the more she played, the more confident she became.

In the other two matches, Chinese players staged a good play of defeating the strong with the weak. Among them, Zhang Yiman, who is ranked 46th in the world, has completed the reversal twice, defeating South Korea's "No. 3 women's singles" and 20th in the world, Kim Jia-eun, who is 21-16 and 21-19. Han Yue, ranked 30th in the world, also overcame the unfavorable situation in both sets, narrowly defeating Canada's no. 10 seed Li Wenshan 21-19 in two sets. For the first time, the duo reached the quarter-finals of the World Championships

Another Chinese "Little Flower", the 21-year-old 14th seed Wang Zhiyi, failed to go any further, and she lost to the No. 5 seed 21-17, 20-22, 19-21 in the case of the first set, and the Korean "genius girl" An Jieyao, who has recently been in a state of explosion. In the quarter-finals, He Bingjiao will play a "derby" with Han Yue, and Zhang Yiman will challenge the No. 7 seed, Thailand's famous Indanong.

In addition, in the women's doubles competition, top seeds Chen Qingchen / Jia Yifan defeated the 15th seed, Canadian combination Hundrić / Cai Wanting, and went one step further towards their first World Championship medal. The 10th seeded Li Wenmei / Zheng Yu lost 1-2 to the unseeded players, the Japanese combination of Iwanaga Suzu / Nakanishi Takaei, and did not qualify.