Dongguan: The stadium rumbled! China made the Sudirman Cup final looked easy when they finished off a dominant 3-0 run against Japan, wrapped up the 8 days event by clinching their sixth consecutive Sudirman Cup title on Sunday. This was also the 10th Sudirman Cup won by China over the tournament’s 27 year history.
In the opening match, China’s Fu Haifeng and Zhang Nan met unexpected resistance from the wholehearted Japanese pair of Hiroyuki Endo and Kenichi Hayakawa. Fu Haifeng/Zhang Nan were forced to work harder to shrug off the spirited Japanese pair before winning 21-17, 20-22, 21-17 in a thrilling men’s doubles match that lasted 79 minutes.
In one of the final’s most riveting contest, Li Xuerui survived a first set fright in the women’s singles match before she dug deep into her vast reservoir of grit to stave Akane Yamaguchi 23-21. Li was able to restore her parity in the second set by winning comfortably 21-14.
“It’s a big tournament, I felt a lot of pressure and make some unforced errors, that’s why the score was so close in the first set,” Li told reporters.
Two-time Olympic champion, Chinese superstar Lin Dan polished his already-shiny legacy on Sunday, pounding Takuma Ueda of Japan in straight sets 21-15, 21-13, to eventually seal China’s sixth consecutive Sudirman Cup triumph with the overall score of 3-0.
