Beijing: The Hunan men’s team on Monday pulled off a huge upset by toppling, Zhejiang, a top-tier badminton team that featured several players from the Chinese national team, such as Zheng Siwei, Wang Yilyu, Huang Yuxiang, to win the 2020 Chinese National Badminton Championships men’s team event.
In the first match of the tie, Zhejiang’s 2014 World Junior champion Lin Guipu took on unheralded Liu Liang of Hunan. However, Liu was the one who made it an aggressive start in the first game to beat Lin 21-18. Lin appeared to lose his focus in the second set and surrendered the match to Liu 19-21 when a return from him was found out of bound.
“Today, I was playing with no pressure, he looked more nervous than me, and he was not able to give his best,” Liu Liang said.
In the first men’s doubles match that followed, Zhejiang’s Zheng Siwei/Wang Yilyu showed their vast experience to pull off a 21-14, 21-9 win over the Hunan’s Huang Jiawei/Zhou Zhihong to level the overall score at 1-1.
Prior to the final, Zheng Siwei had predicted that Zhejiang would win the men’s team title with 3-1. Unfortunately, that won’t happen because, in the topsy-turvy second men’s singles match, Zhou Zeqi of Hunan helped his team regained a 2-1 lead after outlasting Zhejiang’s Ren Pengbo 21-13, 17-21, 21-11.
Zhejiang’s second men’s pair Zhou Haodong/Wang Chang showed some stunning resilience as they held off a stubborn challenge from Hunan’s Chai Biao/Fan Qiuyue 21-17, 21-16 to send the riveting tie right down to the wire.
In the deciding third men’s singles match, 18-year-old Wang Zhengxing from Hunan edged past World No. 23 Huang Yuxiang of Zhejiang in three sets, 21-17, 20-22, 21-13, helping Hunan win the title with an overall score of 3-2.
“My coach encouraged me to stay motivated during the match. The main reason I was able to win today because I paid a lot of attention in the backcourt and taking good care of the net,” said Wang.
In the women’s team final, Tan Ning played in the first women’s singles and second women’s doubles match, scoring both matches for Fujian and helping her team win over Shanghai 3-1.
