Vantaa: The Sudirman Cup defending champion – China, comfortably defeated host Finland 5-0 to open its campaign in the 2021 Sudirman Cup on Sunday.
The 11-time champion, China, was the only team that never missed the semi-finals in the history of the Sudirman Cup.
China’s Tokyo Olympics mixed doubles gold medalists – Wang Yi Lyu/Huang Dong Ping needed only 20 minutes to beat Anton Kaisti/Jenny Nystrom of Finland 21-3, 21-9 to give the defending champion the opening win in Group A.
However, the Energia Areena experienced a blackout while Lu Guang Zu of China was holding a 20-18 match-point against Kalle Koljonen of Finland. The darkness brought an abrupt halt to the men’s singles proceeding. Fortunately, the power came back quickly, and Nystrom managed to score one more point after the power was restored, but Lu didn’t waste any time to wrap up the match 21-16, 21-19 in 62 minutes.
He Bing Jiao then scored the winning point in the best of 5 formats by beating Nella Nyqvist in the women’s singles match 21-10, 21-6.
In the last two matches which had no impact on the outcome, He Ji Ting/Tan Qiang, Chen Qing Chen/Jia Yi Fan went on to defeat their opponents in men’s doubles and women’s doubles respectively.
China will play India on 27 September 2021.
Meanwhile, in a tie between Indonesia and Russia, despite facing some spirited challenges from Russian players in the men’s doubles and mixed doubles matches, the Indonesian team was largely untroubled by the Russians to win its first tie 5-0 on Sunday.
Anthony Sinisuka Ginting and Gregoria Mariska Tunjung got off to a strong start for Indonesia by beating Ivan Sozonov 21-8, 21-8 and Anastasiia Shapovalova 21-14, 21-13 in the men’s singles and women’s singles matches.
Nevertheless, World No. 1 men’s pair – Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo, was trailing 13-17 in the second set, before staging a comeback to beat Vladimir Ivanov/Ivan Sozonov 21-17, 21-18 and to score the winning point for the team Indonesia.
Despite already lost the tie, Russia’s World No. 20 mixed doubles pair Rodion Alimov/Alina Davletova saved four match points before going down to Indonesia’s World No. 4 Praveen Jordan/Melati Daeva Oktavianti 15-21, 25-27 in the fifth match.
Indonesia will play its second Group C tie against Canada on Monday.
Here are results from Day 1 of the 2021 Sudirman Cup championships:
China beats Finland 5-0
Thailand beats India 4-1
Chinese Taipei beats Tahiti 5-0
Korea beats Germany 4-1
Indonesia beats Russia 5-0
Denmark beats Canada 5-0
