On May 2, Beijing time, the 2024 Thomas Cup entered the battle for the semifinals, and the first two 1/4 finals were all focus battles, with the national feather men's team facing the defending champion Indian men's team, and the Japanese men's team fighting the Malaysian men's team.
The national team sent the strongest lineup, the first set by the world No. 2 Shi Yuqi against Prannoy, who had a slight advantage in the previous match, although India lost to Indonesia in the group stage yesterday, but Prannoy still won a point, and the competitive state is still very good.
As a result, after losing the first game 15-21, Shi Yuqi won two games in a row 21-11 and 21-14 to defeat Prannoy and win the first point for the Chinese team.
Shi Yuqi talks about reversal: Iron and blood reversal won the first point, Shi Yuqi said that he has been looking for a way to find a breakthrough today. He said that he didn't watch the live broadcast of the draw last night, and everything was getting ready, although the opponent was the defending champion of the Tang Cup, although he lost a single in the men's team at the Asian Games, but we have a chance, everyone does their own thing and works together. Regarding the goal at the last moment of the decisive game, Shi Yuqi responded: "I may not be able to play once in 100 years!"
The second set by Leung Wai Hang / Wang Chang against Rankireddy / Shetty, is a pair of the two teams, Leung Wai Hang / Wang Chang is currently ranked No. 1 in the world, last year began to improve very much, Rankireddy / Shetty is also very strong, is the main member of the last champion, ranked third in the world, won the Asian Games men's doubles championship last year, although they won the first three group games, but they were more difficult, the two sides played 6 times, Leung Wei Keng / Wang Chang 4 wins and 2 losses, this year 2 meetings have won.
The start of the game: Leung Wai Hang/ Wang Chang played very excitedly, entered the state very quickly, 5-0 lead, the offensive speed was very fast, the shot was very relaxed, the attack in the backcourt was very fierce, the front court grabbed very actively, played very resolutely, the technique and tactics were very clear, the back 8-2 continued to lead, Liang Weihang was excellent in attack and defense, Wang Chang was very decisive in the front court, always maintained the lead in the score, or very resolute shot, the Indian combination strengthened the quality of the hair extension, has been chasing points, 16-10, but behind their serve violations, at the end of the game they have some recent scores, Liang Wei Keng/ Wang Chang had a clear lead, winning the first game 21-15.
In the second game, Liang Weihang/Wang Chang led 5-2 at the beginning, but still played very resolutely, did not give the high ball, so that the Indian combination could not smash vigorously in the backcourt, and kept using speed to meet them, and the competition in the middle half was dominant, but there was a mistake in the back, and the Indian combination overtook the score 8-7, their coherence slowly played up, and the back was already 12-8 lead, the Indian combination played well in attack and coherence, and opened the score 18-11, Leung Weihang/Wang Chang was obviously in a slump, losing the second game 11-21.
In the deciding game, Leung Wei Keng/Wang Chang started 5-0, and once again spelled out the speed of the front, and the mistakes of the Indian combination suddenly increased, mainly because they actively fought for speed, causing them to make mistakes in rhythm, and continued to lead 8-3 in the back, entering the interval with 11-4, Leung Wei Keng/Wang Chang always rushed to the front, continued to suppress them, so that the Indian combination could not play the advantage of attack, and the back has been opened to 17-8, and finally 21-12 locked the victory of the game, helping the Chinese team to win the second point.
In the third set, Li Shifeng lost to Lakshya 1-2, and at present, Li Shifeng is better than his opponent in terms of world ranking and previous records, and won the Sudirman Cup with the team. The first game was still relatively stable, the first half of the game was very stale, and the second half of the game played out his own characteristics, but the second game was defeated, and he lost 8-21 in the state, and he still couldn't find the feeling in the decisive game, and lost the game 14-212, which was the first loss of the national feather in this competition.
In the men's doubles in the fourth set, He Jiting/Ren Xiangyu defeated Kapila/Prantik 2-0, winning relatively easily, the scene was more dominant, and the score has always been in the lead, successfully suppressing the opponent and helping the Chinese team get the third point, thus eliminating India with a big score of 3-1, so that the defending champion is out.
In the other game, the big-seeded team Japan lost 1-3 to Malaysia, or an upset, Japan lost two sets of singles, Kenta Nishimoto was blasted out of the second game by Li Zijia with a disparity score of 21-3, Watanabe Hanggui lost 0-2 to Liang Junhao, only relying on a pair of Hoki Takuro / Kobayashi Yugo reversed and narrowly defeated Xie Dingfeng/Su Weiyi.
In fact, the Japanese team could have been stronger, Naraoka Kodai is reported to have run, if he can get on, a single is more likely to win, of course, he seemed to be in the team competition before, and the singles will be resurrected. The second singles Kenta Nishimoto was evenly matched against Liang Junhao, which was still a pity for Japan, and the national feather next faced Malaysia to compete for a place in the final.