The 2024 Thomas Cup group stage is coming to an end. Guoyu and his old rival South Korea had a five-hour fierce battle to decide the winner and advance to the knockout round as the first in the group. In this game, both teams sent their full main lineups, and the Chinese team won 3 singles in a row and lost 2 doubles in a row, narrowly winning 3-2.
This ball can be summed up as "2 accidents", the first accident is that Shi Yuqi and Quan Yichen fought hard for 3 games, and the second accident is that the men's doubles are all lost, especially Liu Yuchen/Ou Xuanyi lost to Qi Dongzhu/Jin Yuanhao. Judging from the men's singles world ranking alone, the national feather occupies the absolute main force, Shi Yuqi ranks second, although Quan Yichen is South Korea's No. 1 men's singles, but the world ranking is only 47th, but at the beginning, South Korea's Quan Yichen gave Shi Yuqi a kick, but fortunately, Shi Yuqi stabilized his mentality and won two games in a row, with a score of 14-21/21-17/21-7.
The second match was between world No. 1 Leung Wei Keng/Wang Chang and world No. 2 Kang Min-hyuk/Seo Seung-jae, and after three games, the Liang Wang pair lost 16-21/21-15/15-21, which was also the first point conceded by the national team in the soup cup. However, the loss of the first men's doubles is still understandable and acceptable, after all, Kang Minhyuk/Seo Seungjae is not weak, and he has won the World Championships, but the upset loss of the second men's doubles Liu Yuchen/Ou Xuanyi is a bit surprising.
Liu Yuchen/Ou Xuanyi is ranked eighth in the world, the Korean combination Qi Dongzhu/Kim Yuanhao is a temporary partner, Jin Yuanhao is mainly attacking mixed doubles, the men's doubles world ranking is only 40th, and the men's doubles ranking of Qi Dongzhu is only 183rd, it is in the face of such a pair, Liu Yuchen/Ou Xuanyi played quite passively, won one game and lost two games in a row, losing 21-17/17-21/21-23. thought that the men's doubles match would become the end point of the game, but after losing the game, he could only rely on Lu Guangzu.
Lu Guangzu faced Woo Seung-hoon in the crucial tiebreaker, and in the end he was full of firepower and did not give his opponent any chance, winning 21-10 and 21-15 to help Guoyu win the winning point and become the hero of the group victory. As soon as Lu Guangzu came on the field, he looked full of confidence, and his eyes were full of "desire to win." After the game, Lu Guangzu said: "You must be domineering, you must show momentum, and go all out to win it." In addition, Lee Shi-bong defeated Lee Lun-gyu 21-15, 21-9.
South Korea are the strongest opponents they have faced so far, but they are not the favourites to win the tournament because the Korean men's singles team is seriously lame, and only Jeon Yi Chan has squeezed into the top 50. But in the face of such a team with obvious loopholes, the Chinese men's team still fell into a hard battle, which also put forward a warning signal for the team to regain the soup cup, and our men's doubles needs to refuel.
In the other battle for the top spot, Denmark and Malaysia also fought hard for five games to decide the winner. Viktor Axelsen, Antonsen and Gemke helped Denmark win three singles matches in a row, while Xie Dingfeng/Su Weiyi and Goh Shifei/Izuddin helped Malaysia win two doubles in a row, exactly the same situation as China and South Korea.