Singapore: In an all-Taiwanese affair at the final of the Singapore Open, the No. 1 seed Chou Tien Chen eased past teammate Hsu Jen-hao comfortably to take home USD $26,625.00 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on Sunday.
The World No. 7 Chou defeated Hsu with the same 21-13 score in both games to win the BWF Super 500 men’s singles crown. It was Chou’s first Singapore Open tile and his second title of the year, after beating Angus Ng Ka Long of Hong Kong in the German Open final in March.
Meanwhile, the result was Hsu Jen-hao’s best career performance. His previous best was a semi-final exit at a BWF Super Series event.
“It was the first time for me to get into the final of a Super Series event,” said Hsu.
“I am very happy that Chou and I were able to win the gold and silver for Taiwan,” added Hsu.
Both Chou and Hsu will represent Taiwan at next month’s Asia Games in Jakarta.
In men’s doubles, No. 5 seeds Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia stormed past unseeded Ou Xuanyi/Xiangyu Ren of China 21-13, 21-19 to win the third Singapore Open title for Setiawan, the second for the pair.
“Surely we are happy with this result and to finally able to win a championship and the Singapore Open title again. Although we dominated the whole match, but it was not easy, we had to stay focus to make sure our opponent couldn’t come back,” said Ahsan.
“As Ahsan said, we have not won for a long time. Hopefully this result could boost our confidence for the upcoming tournaments. In game two, we were surprised by the opponent, because they played more loose and showed some good defense,” said Hendra.
The Singapore Open title was Hendra Setiawan and Mohammad Ahsan’s second title of the year after winning the Malaysia International challenge in April by beating Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia 21-17, 17-21, 21-19.
