Kuala Lumpur: Hong Wei, Bao Yixin, Luo Ying and Luo Yu have announced their retirements from professional badminton, confirmed by Badminton World Federation (BWF) on Tuesday.
The former World No.2 men’s doubles player, Hong Wei is known for his powerful smash, and has been playing with his current partner Chai Biao since 2013. The pair just won their first medal (bronze) at BWF World Championships three weeks ago, caught everybody by surprise by calling it quits. Hong and Chai competed at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, but lost the bronze medal match to Great Britain pair Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge.
Bao Yixin who is only 24 years old, was the most successful among the four players. Bao and her former partner Tang Jinhua had won seven Superseries titles together, and the pair was practically unbeatable when they took home seven straight titles starting with the Dutch Open in October 2013 until the Swiss Open in March 2014. Bao had won total of 15 Superseries titles, where one of them was in mixed doubles, with Liu Cheng at the 2013 Hong Kong Open.
After beating World No. 1 women’s doubles pair Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan 25-23, 18-21, 21-15 in the China National Games final, being the only twins in the women’s doubles category, former World No. 1 women’s pair Luo Ying and Luo Yu also said goodbye to the sport of badminton. The Luo sisters have been sidelined from the China national team ever since they have performed poorly in the Rio Olympic for not able to advance to the knocked-out stage after placed third in the group stage.
