The "IELTS" combination was challenged and missed the final four of the Singapore Championship, and the advantage of the Chinese mixed doubles group was lost little by little
On June 9, the 2023 BWF Tour Singapore Open reached the quarterfinals. In the competitions that have ended, Guoyu has been "bad news", and the top player or combination of two events has been eliminated. One of the most regrettable mixed doubles "IELTS" combinations, Zheng Si and Hwang Yaqiong lost 0-2 to South Korea's Kim Won-ho / Jung Na-eun and missed the semifinals. Coincidentally, in a China-Japan match in the men's singles 1/4 final, Shi Yuqi lost 0-2 to Japan's current No. 1 player Kōdai Naraoka, and also stopped in the quarterfinals.
After a two-week break, Cheng and Wong joined the team in Singapore and began the Singapore Open in the Super 750 division. The two performed reasonably in the first two rounds and successfully advanced to the quarterfinals. In the quarterfinals, "IELTS" met the South Korean pair Kim Won-ho / Jung Na-eun, who just won the Thailand Open last week, which can be said to be a newly rising strong pair, which has reached the sixth place in the world, and is expected to succeed Seo Seung-jae and Choi Yoong-hyun as South Korea's No. 1 mixed doubles in the future.
The South Korean pair entered the game faster, taking an 11-4 lead at a timeout. "IELTS" returned to the court and played a wave of counterattacks, once chasing an 18-18 draw, but unfortunately the two made several mistakes at the end of the game and lost 19-21. In the second game, Zheng Siwei and Hwang Yaqiong still did not feel excited enough, while the South Korean was full of firepower, and won the match point first, and also won 21-19.
From the current point of view, with the performance of Feng Yanzhe/Huang Dongping, Jiang Zhenbang/Wei Yaxin not being stable, even "IELTS" has been challenged to a certain extent, and the long-term group advantage of the mixed doubles has begun to be unstable, which is worrying. This trend was actually reflected in the Sudirman Cup, when the semi-final "Phoenix" combination lost to the Japanese opponent, and "IELTS" tried its best to reverse Seo Seungjae and Choi Yoo-hyun in the final, which was quite thrilling.
In the men's singles 1/4 final, Shi Yuqi, who played in the semifinals of the Sudirman Cup, met Naraoka Kodai again, but this time the result was the opposite. Half a month ago in Suzhou, Shi Yuqi won the match 2-1, and this time Shi Yuqi played without the opponent's active opponent, facing the current Japanese team's first men's singles after Momota Kento gradually faded, losing two consecutive games 14-21, 16-21, missing the semifinals. It can be said that in today's international badminton men's singles events, Shi Yuqi or Chinese players have more and more opponents, and it is becoming more and more difficult to play, especially in important tour or competitions, the national badminton men's singles is quite difficult every round, and this situation has not improved for several years.
Fortunately, it was not all bad news, Chen Yufei defeated Thailand's Getong 2-0 to reach the women's singles semifinals. Leung Wai Keng/Wang Chang defeated Lane/Wendi 2-0, and the "Fan Chen" pair Chen Qingchen / Jia Yifan defeated their old rivals Jin Zhaoying / Kong Xiyong 2-0 to advance to the semifinals in the men's and women's doubles events respectively. In the other women's singles semifinal, Wang Zhiyi lost to the now popular South Korean girl An Zhiying 18-21, which was also expected.
Text/Beiqing Sports Liu Ailin