Chengdu: The 2020 China Badminton Super League (CBSL) will reach its climax on Monday, with Qingdao Renzhou and Ruichang Biyuan setting up an explosive title clash in the final.
Through Qingdao’s star-studded lineup (it has 13 players from the China national team), they easily saw off Xiamen Tefang 3-0 in the semi-final. The competition system has been adjusted after entering the semi-final stage where teams were no longer needed to play five matches, as long as one team has won three out of five matches.
The Xiamen team seemed to give up strategically in the semi-final as it did not play Rio Olympic gold medalist Chen Long and its top women’s singles Han Yue in the semi-final tie against Qingdao. Perhaps they were trying to reserve their energy to prepare for the third and fourth place battle on Monday.
Meanwhile, in the other semi-final that was also held on Sunday, Ruichang Biyuan and Hunan Hualai both sent the strongest lineup and Ruichang came back from 0-1 to outlast Hunan Hualai 3-1 to enter the final.
In the first mixed doubles match, Hunan’s He Jiting/Wei Yaxin pulled off an upset to beat Ren Xiangyu/Huang Yaqiong of Ruichang 11-9, 13-11, 7-11, 11-8.
After the game, Huang Yaqiong, who has been ranked World No. 1 in mixed doubles for the past two years, said that Wei Yaxin was very active in hitting and blocking the net shots, which made her a little passive during most of the game.
Fortunately, Ruichang was not affected by the mixed doubles loss. In the second women’s singles, Ruichang’s He Bingjiao defeated Hunan’s Zhou Meng 3-0 in 27 minutes to level the overall score to 1-1.
In the women’s doubles match, Ruichang’s Chen Qingchen/Zheng Yu gritting their way to a hard-fought victory by beating Hunan’s Liu Xuanxuan/Chen Fanghui 6-11, 11-8, 11-8, 8-11, 11-7.
Li Shifeng of Ruichang then defeated Zhou Zeqi 7-11, 11-4, 11-7, 11-6 to wrap up the tie for Ruichang with a 3-1 victory over Hunan.
