On April 5, Beijing time, the 2022 South Korean Open Badminton Championships ended the first matchday competition. In a focus battle in the first round of men's singles, China's youngster Weng Hongyang defeated the host "one brother" Xu Youxi 2-0 and advanced to the round of 16.
Weng Hongyang, born in 1999, is now only 22 years old, and is another men's singles rising star trained by the Fujian badminton team. As the brother-in-law of Olympic champion Chen Long, Weng Hongyang is highly anticipated and has also been praised and valued by his brother. In 2019, Weng Hongyang won the first BWF Tour title at the China Lingshui Badminton Masters. In 2020, Weng Hongyang defeated all the best players in the championship to win the men's singles championship. Weng Hongyang, who moved forward step by step, was selected into the Chinese team squad as a "four singles" in last year's Thomas Cup, and won the second place with the team. At the South Korean Open Badminton Championships, Weng Hongyang, who is currently ranked only 156th in the world, originally could not qualify for the main tournament, but due to the large number of retired players, he saw the hope of substitute participation. But in fact, on the day of departure to South Korea, Weng Hongyang was not sure if he could play until the official release of the schedule the day before the start of the match.
In the first round, Weng Hongyang drew the South Korean badminton team men's singles active "first brother" Heo Youxi, who had eliminated two-time World Champion Momota Kendou at the Tokyo Olympics and had a good strength. Before the game, almost many people were optimistic about Weng Hongyang, and they all thought that Xu Youxi, who had the advantage of the home field, could win easily. However, the trend of the game was unexpected by everyone, and it was always Weng Hongyang who controlled the situation on the field, and the score of 21-12/21-16 could even be regarded as a player of two grades in the men's singles international competition. It is worth mentioning that the off-court coach for Weng Hongyang in this game is Luo Yigang, the head coach of the national women's singles team, who won the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games with his beloved apprentice Chen Yufei, and helped Weng Hongyang achieve an upset counterattack, and the future is worth looking forward to.