On April 10, Beijing time, the men's singles final of the 2022 Korea Open Badminton Championships was held between China's Weng Hongyang and Indonesia's famous Jonatan. Weng Hongyang, with a first set of 12-21, won two consecutive sets 21-19, 21-15, and won the championship with a reversal victory over Jonathan. This is not only the only championship won by the Chinese team in this Korean Open, but also ends the three-year championship drought of China's men's badminton singles.
Only one of the seven-member national team advanced to the final four, but it was Weng Hongyang, the most unpromissed substitute player before the game, who reversed Indonesia's famous Jonatan in the final and won the only gold medal for the Chinese team at the Korea Open, which not only ended the three-year championship drought of the Chinese men's singles, but also made the depressed men's singles see hope again.
From Europe to South Korea, the original main player of the national feathers but a large area of retirement, in the end only three women's singles, men's singles two, mixed doubles two participated in the competition of this station. Although the people are not prosperous, there are few foreign famous players, and we also have world-class famous players such as Chen Yufei and Huang Yaqiong, and it should not be difficult to get good results in the 500 level competition.
But no one expected that the women's singles that had performed well since the Tokyo Olympics had become the first single event to fold, first There was Han Yue's "one round trip", then Wang Zhiyi stopped the second round, and the most surprising thing was the number one seed Chen Yufei, in the absence of old opponents, she lost 0-2 to the world's second-rate host Jin Jia'en, missed the quarterfinals, and the Chinese women's singles were completely destroyed.
Mixed doubles is still promising, after all, Ou Xuanyi / Huang Yaqiong reached the final for the first time in the German Open last month, although the loss to De Chapol / Sassiri failed to win the championship, but the overall performance was not bad, but the pair came to South Korea again, the two failed to show the tacit understanding and mutual support that the partners should have, lost to the Malaysian combination Chen Jianming / Lai Peijun, who is not the world's top Malaysian team, and did not qualify for the final four.
At this time, only Weng Hongyang was left in the final four. Originally, the men's singles was seen as the first to return home, after all, this year's German and All England Open tournaments are like this, not to mention the two contestants in this competition, Li Shifeng lost to the Israeli player who almost did not have this person in the first round, and Weng Hongyang came to South Korea from China alone to wait for a substitute seat to qualify.
But it was in this impossible situation that Weng Hongyang made everything possible. In the first round, he defeated South Korea's Heo Woo-hee, who was not even easy to deal with Momota Hyun-doo, and in the second round, he defeated Malaysia's Jang Joon-wei and defeated another Malaysian player, Huang Jiyong, in the quarter-finals, and the 23-year-old from Fujian became The only hope for Guoyu after the final four.
At this point, we can already see Weng Hongyang's ability - it is precisely because he came directly to South Korea from home, did not follow most of the turnover to Europe, omitted boat and car labor, reserved good energy and physical fitness, offensive but not weak defense, he has jump kills and other sharp scoring means, although there are few opportunities for international competitions before, but the field is smart and calm, which we do not often see in other young players.
So after beating Denmark's Svenderson 2-0 in the semifinals, Weng Hongyang ushered in the last and most heavyweight opponent Jonatan, regardless of ranking, fame, strength, the other side is too much higher than him, and today's final is indeed Jonatan's faster entry into the rhythm of the game, 21-12 first, the first to play the level of the famous player.
But Weng Hongyang showed a strong desire to win, played very tenaciously, the second set he was once 16-19 behind, looking like he was about to lose, but he seized the loophole that Jonathan appeared at this time, chased the score continuously, equalized the score 21-19, and played more and more confidently in the decider, and finally locked in the victory 21-15, defeated the third seed, and won the Korean Open championship.
As a substitute, he won the laurel in the 500 class for the first time, which is enough to show that "the opportunity is left to those who are prepared", Weng Hongyang seized the opportunity of many players to retire, showed himself on the field, and let himself go from the second line of the team to the front of the stage. And this championship is not only for him, but also an encouragement for the Chinese men's singles, after all, the last tour champion dates back to the French Open Chen Long's victory three years ago.
When Chen Long has been in the adjustment period and has not yet returned, Shi Yuqi has also been recovering in China, Lu Guangzu and Zhao Junpeng simply cannot rank among the world's first-class, Li Shifeng Xiaohe only showed sharp corners and then fell into a low tide, Weng Hongyang's performance is undoubtedly a shot in the arm for men's singles, but I don't know if his performance and his championship can bring real changes to the sluggish men's singles.
Weng Hongyang is of course the biggest surprise of Guoyu at the Korea Open, but in addition, we still have to see very clearly how the women's singles should be adjusted as soon as possible due to the poor performance of injuries and conditions, how the mixed doubles pairing should be optimized, and how the men's doubles and women's doubles that did not participate should be matched to create a better lineup in the new cycle.
So the world's famous players have been absent from this Korea Open, the national feather a gold, Malaysia with Chen Jianming / Lai Peijun mixed doubles gold medal also won, the biggest winner is naturally the South Korean team that took advantage of the time and place, Ahn Hyun-ying, Seo Seung-jae / Kang Min-hyuk, Jeong Na Eun / Kim Hye-lin won the women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles gold medals respectively.
However, the tide of withdrawal from this station makes the game itself not more informative, and the strength of the teams today is still to be seen in the Tangyou Cup in May.
Wen | Li Ting
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