The 2023 Asian Badminton Championships ended in Dubai on the evening of April 29, Beijing time, in the semifinals of five events, and the Chinese badminton team's two mixed doubles pairs Zheng Siwei/Huang Yaqiong and young partners Jiang Zhenbang/Wei Yaxin met in the final to lock up a gold medal in advance. However, this is also the only title that Guoya has been able to win at this Asian Championship. In the other two semifinals with national badminton players, Lu Guangzu of the men's singles and Chen Yufei of the women's singles both lost, while the Chinese players in the men's and women's doubles were all out of the previous round. Compared with the three gold medals won in the last Asian Championships, Guoyu's results in this Asian Championships have regressed significantly.
In the men's singles semifinals, Lu Guangzu lost 0-2 to Singapore's world champion Luo Jianyou, originally thinking that Lu Guangzu had a chance to break his championship drought in this Asian Championship, but the end was still cruel, and he still failed to break through the bottleneck with his outstanding performance in the first two rounds. As a result, the Chinese men's badminton did not qualify for the singles final of the Asian Championships for the first time in 16 years, and the record was still poor when the main team was exhausted.
In the women's singles semifinals, only Olympic champion Chen Yufei qualified for the women's singles semifinals, against old rival An Zhiying of South Korea. As a result, Chen Yufei won first and then lost 1-2, which was her third consecutive loss to Ahn Zhiying, and the previous advantage against the Korean girl had disappeared. The men's and women's singles finals of this Asian Championship are Luo Jianyou, Jin Ting, An Zhiying and Dai Ziying. In the men's and women's doubles events, Guoyu did not win the semifinals at all.
Only the mixed doubles semifinals came good news, and the national badminton ace pair Zheng Siwei/Wong Yaqiong completely suppressed Malaysia's Wu Soon Huat/Lai Jiemin to win two straight sets 21-11, 21-13. In the other semifinal, Jiang Zhenbang/Wei Yaxin led for most of the time, also beating Indonesia's Ferdinandsya/Vidgar 2-0 (21-17, 21-15). In this way, the two pairs will compete for the mixed doubles title and lock the only gold medal of the tournament for the team in advance.
After a series of European competitions at the beginning of the season, including the All England Championship, Guoyu trained for more than a month, and although the focus was on the Sudirman Cup in Suzhou in May, it also hoped to win the Asian Championships, the equivalent of the Super 1000 event, and also to train the team, so this time sent all the main team to the United Arab Emirates. Now it seems that the current state of the national badminton players is very unsatisfactory, and most of the players have not been able to mobilize their full energy.
Of course, the Sudirman Cup is a mixed team competition, which is a comprehensive measure of the strength and level of men's and women's badminton in a country or a badminton association, and from this point of view, the Chinese badminton team is still the strongest in the world. I hope that the results in this Asian Championship will not affect the fighting spirit and emotions of the players, and in half a month, they will fight for another Su Cup at their doorstep.
Text/Beiqing Sports Liu Ailin