13th FISU World University Badminton Championship dominated by Asians
The 13th edition of the FISU World University Badminton Championship hosted in Cordoba, Spain, ended yesterday 29 July with the Asian players dominating the medal podium.
The first matches of the final day saw Iskandar (MAS – N°5) and Huan Gao (CHN – N°2) qualify for the men’s singles final defeating respectively Jen-Hao Hsu (TPE – N°1) and Arif (MAS). Shortly later in the mixed doubles, Tang/Liu (CHN – N°8) eliminated Vountus/Meng (MAS) to qualify for the final where they would meet their teammates Zhang/Ou who defeated the seed N°2, Malaysia’s Lufti/Fei Cho Soong. The women’s singles tournament was the only one having a logical final with both the seed N°1, China’s Xin Liu (world N°20) eliminating her teammate Xiaojia Chen (CHN) and seed n°2 Yu-Po Pai beating Shiomda (JPN) in their respective semi-finals. In the women’s doubles, Shinoda/Uratani (JPN) obtained their spot in the final after defeating Kim/Kang (KOR) to face seed n°2 China’s Ou/Tang who defeated Taipei’s Wu/Hsieh in two easy sets 21/8; 21/13. Finally in the men’s doubles China’s Guo/Zhang defeated Hsu/Lin (TPE) while Arif/Iskandar (MAS) overcame the loss of the first game to finally defeat another pair from Chinese Taipei Tseng/Wang and qualify for the final.
In the afternoon, the programme of the five finals started with the women’s doubles and the impressive victory of China’s Ou/Tang (N°2) over Shinoda/Uratani (JPN) in thirty minutes and two sets 21/13; 21/8. The men’s singles final offered much more suspense. Huan Gao (N°2 – CHN) took the first set 21/15 and the public was expecting a fast ending when Iskandar (N°5 – MAS), surprisingly as in every one of his matches, came back to take the second set 21/15 but ended up losing in what appeared to be the set of the tournament 22-20 after having lead 9-16. It was the second gold medal of China on what started to look like a grand slam afternoon for China. The following match continued this impression with two Chinese pairs facing each other. Ou/Zhang lost to their fellow team members Liu/Tang (N°8) in two quick games and less than 15 minutes 21/12 and 21/11. In the next match, Yu-Po Pay (N°2 – TPE) took a good start in the women’s singles final winning the first set 21/19 against Liu (CHN –N°1 – world N°20). In the second set, the Chinese came back on track with a game easily won 21/12, all would then be decided in the last set. The last set was an epic one, very tense and saw as a surprise the world N°20 player lose to the n°37, Yu-Po Pay taking the title 21/16 in the last set. To conclude, the men’s doubles final saw another surprise, not only Iskandar and Arif (MAS) did a great tournament in singles, not only were they not specialist of doubles, but the two top 100 players (respectively 94 and 57) managed to take the best over the Chinese pair Guo/Zhang in two sets, bringing the title to Malaysia 21/16 and 21/19.
Earlier this week China took the gold in the team competition, leaving silver to Malaysia while Korea and Chinese Taipei had to settle for the bronze.
In 2016, the 14th edition of the WUC Badminton will travel to the city of Ramenskoe in the suburbs of Moscow, Russia.
C. Pierre, FISU Press Officer