On May 12, Beijing time, the 2022 Tangyou Cup finals continued in Bangkok, Thailand, and the Japanese team reached the final four in the Uber Cup. In the quarter-finals with Chinese Taipei, Akane Yamaguchi defeated Dai Ziying in the first game, and then Japan scored two more points, and they beat Chinese Taipei 3-0.
The Japanese team are the top seeds of this year's Uber Cup, and they are one of the favourites to win the championship. The Japan team's singles and doubles strengths are balanced, and there are masters such as Akane Yamaguchi and Okuhara in the singles. In women's doubles, they have three high-level combinations such as Yuki Fukushima / Caihua Hirota, Nao Matsuyama / Chiyo Shida, and they are the biggest rivals of the Chinese team on the road to defending the You Cup. Although the Chinese Taipei team is led by Dai Ziying this time, their overall strength is still significantly different from that of several popular teams competing for the championship.
Japan sent their strongest squads in the quarter-finals, with three singles players Akane Yamaguchi, Hope Okuhara and Sayaka Takahashi, and two doubles pairs of Yuki Fukushima/Saihana Hirota, Mayu Matsumoto/Nagahara and Kona. The first match was a strong dialogue between Akane Yamaguchi and Dai Ziying, and the previous head-to-head record between the two was that Dai Ziying had a slight advantage of 10 wins and 8 losses.
After the opening, the two alternated points, and after 5-4, Akane Yamaguchi scored four consecutive points to pull away. Dai Ziying, who was behind the score, quickly returned the attack and quickly chased the score to 9-10, but she lost the feeling of scoring afterwards, and Akane Yamaguchi took 5 points to pull away again. Dai Ziying recovered 1 point, and Akane Yamaguchi scored 6 consecutive points to win 21-10.
Dai Ziying attacked more aggressively in the second set, quickly taking a 6-1 lead. Akane Yamaguchi narrowed the gap to 1 point several times, and Dai Ziying responded quickly to maintain the lead. Dai Ziying was a little relaxed when leading 17-10, and the tenacious Akane Yamaguchi chased the score to 17-18, Dai Ziying hit back two points to stabilize the situation, and she won back a set 21-19. The two sides played more glue in the decider, with several equals on the court, and after 10 draws, Akane Yamaguchi scored another point to lead the exchange field.
After Yibian, Akane Yamaguchi played a scoring climax to pull 18-13, Dai Ziying tried to counterattack, and Akane Yamaguchi gave a counterattack to get the match point 20-17. Dai Ziying saved two match points in a row, but unfortunately she was still unable to return to heaven, 21-19, Akane Yamaguchi won the decider to win 2-1, this match took 56 minutes. Japan led 1-0.
In the women's doubles match, Yuki Fukushima/ Caihua Hirota and Chinese Taipei's Xu Yaqing/Lin Qingqing played three sets in 1 hour and 14 minutes, and Yuki Fukushima/ Caihua Hirota, who lost one set first, staged a reversal and won two consecutive sets to beat their opponents 2-1 (19-21, 21-7, 21-14). Japan extended the aggregate score to 2-0.
The third game was a two-single match between the two teams, and Okuhara hoped to play Xu Weiqi. This is the first time the two players have met in the World Badminton League, Xu Weiqi is ranked 58th in the world, and she has reached the quarterfinals at the previous Asian Championships. After the start of the first set, Xu Weiqi performed well, and she quickly took the lead. Okuhara hoped to chase after it, and once chased the score to 12 draws, Xu Weiqi hit back with 3 points and pulled away again. In the following matches, Okuhara hoped to be unable to counterattack, and Xu Weiqi won the first set 21-15.
From the second set onwards, Okuhara hoped to gradually get into shape, she began to control the situation, and for most of the next two sets she was in the lead, 21-13, 21-9, she won two consecutive sets to defeat Xu Weiqi 2-1, and Japan eliminated Chinese Taipei 3-0 to reach the final four.