Wang completes amazing Cinderella run

MANILA, Philippines, May 2 ------ Unheralded Chinese Wang Zhi Yi sealed her Cinderella triumph in the Smart Badminton Asia Championships with a pulsating three-setter over Japanese world champion Akane Yamaguchi at the packed Muntinlupa Sports Complex yesterday.

Wang, ranked 16th in the world and unseeded in this tournament, came back from one set down and fended off world No. 2 and top seed Yamaguchi’s fiery third-set fightback to clinch the women’s singles tiara with a 15-21, 21-13, 21-19 stunner. The 22-year-old Wang gained 12,000 points in the Badminton World Federation world rankings for this breakout championship. Yamaguchi, who won the last edition of the event in 2019 in Wuhan, received 10,200 points for the runner-up finish.

Chinese world No. 1 Zheng Si Wei and Huang Ya Qiong lived up to their billing and romped off with the mixed doubles plum at the expense of compatriots Wang Yi Lyu and Huang Dong Ping, 21-17, 21-8.

Women’s pair Chen Qing Chen and Jia Yi Fan added a third gold for China with their 21-11, 21- 15 triumph over Japan’s Rin Iwanaga and Kie Nakanishi.

Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia celebrated another coronation in the venue of his Southeast Asian Games conquest in 2019 as he annexed the Continental men’s singles title via a 21-17, 23-21, dispatching of Indonesia’s Jonatan Christie.

Indonesians Pramudya Kusumawardana and Yeremia Rambitan, meanwhile, reigned supreme in the men’s doubles, ascending to the throne with a 23-21, 21-10 verdict over Malaysia’s fifth seed pair Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik.

A day after her hard-earned 10-21, 21-12, 21-16 semifinal reversal over Korean second seed An Se Young, Wang brought out the upset axe anew and dropped it on Yamaguchi on her way to the summit. “I’m very excited to get the championship. It was incredible and unimaginable because no one thought that I would win the title, including myself,” said Wang. “Yamaguchi is a very tough opponent so I had to adjust my mentality to go through some tough decisions in the match,” she said after the one-hour, 18-minute title duel witnessed by a huge crowd that included badminton executive and sports patron Manny V. Pangilinan.

After yielding the first frame, the Jingzhou native racked up six unanswered points to build a 20-11 cushion in the second for the equalizer. Wang raced to a 17-6 tear in the third but fell into a spate of errors, allowing Yamaguchi to rally and draw level at 19-19. However, Wang restored order and slammed in a smash and forced her opponent to hit the net to finally close it.

Source: philstar.com