New Taipei, Chinese Taipei – During the second day of 1st AUC Badminton, many matches were fought right down to the wire to reach the eventual results. A number of seeded players were knocked out by lower ranked players during the quarter-finals in the morning and the semi-finals in the afternoon. The several neck-to-neck encounters made the competition increasingly unpredictable and tensed. Nevertheless the finalists of all five categories had to be decided at the end of the day.
The host Chinese Taipei produced stellar results. Their shuttlers from three categories - women's singles (Wen-Chi Hsu), women's doubles (Chiao-Yun Liu /Yu-Qiao Wang) and men's doubles (Young-Sheng Lin/Ming-Tse Yang) - all made it to the finals.
Wen-Chi Hsu ousted Mayu Sogo (JPN) 21-17 21-13 in the semifinal, and became the first local player to reach the final. "I will further reduce my unforced errors for tomorrow's match," said Hsu. Her opponent in the final will be Joo-Eun Kim (KOR), who battled out a 85 minutes long match in the other quarterfinal. As the top seed of women's doubles, Chiao-Yun Liu and Yu-Qiao Wang won a tough three-setter in the quarter-final against a Japanese pair. Following that they notched up a slightly easier win in the semi-final against a Korean pair. Commenting about their match in the final, "We won't overthink, but will play one point at a time.”
China has always been a dominant force in the badminton world, and this time is no exception. They will be represented in three finals – mixed doubles, women’s doubles and men’s doubles. Bo-wen Ni will be quite busy contesting in both the mixed doubles and women’s doubles with partners Jiangqi Tao and Peng Du respectively. Ni said: "Although I had many matches today in both quarter and semi finals, I will still try my very best to compete with full commitment tomorrow."
Malaysia shuttlers also played exceptionally well today. Men's singles Junyan Ng put up a wonderful performance to dispatch the top seed Chun-Yi Lin (TPE). "I'm glad to go through to the gold medal match; I felt I played quite well in both matches today."
Five inaugural gold medals of the 1st AUC Badminton will be up for grabs on the final day of the championship. All the matches on September 20th will be broadcast live on FOX TV.
The finals on September 20th:
Starting at 9:00
Mixed Doubles
Jian-qi Tao/Bo-wen Ni (CHN) vs. Tak-Ching Chang/ Sin-Ying Yuen (HKG)
Women's Singles
Wen-Chi Hsu (TPE) vs. Joo-Eun Kim (KOR)
Men's Singles
Junyan Ng (MAS) vs. Takuma Obayashi (JPN)
Women's Doubles
Chiao-Yun Liu/Yu-Qiao Wang (TPE) vs. Peng Du/Bo-wen Ni (CHN)
Men's Doubles
Young-Sheng Lin/Ming-Tse Yang (TPE) vs. Hao-tian Wan/Hao-nan Xie (CHN)
For more information, please visit www.ausf.org.
(Source: AUSF Media Committee and Secretariat)