CHINA MASTERS 2010 – Lee & Hwang accompany Chinese into 1st round

China Masters first round even more packed with local talent but two Koreans sneak through.

By Don Hearn, Badzine Correspondent.  Photos: Yves Lacroix, BadmintonPhoto (live from Changzhou)

It seems you had to be a former Korean champion to beat China in Changzhou today as Lee Hyun Il and Hwang Hye Youn were the only two non-Chinese to make it through Tuesday’s qualifying rounds at the 2010 Li Ning China Masters Super Series event in Changzhou.

Both Koreans were national champions in 2006 and maintained their top dog status until recently.  Lee retired from the national team and began to fall behind Park Sung Hwan while Hwang was on top of the domestic scene until sidelined by a foot injury last fall.  Lee returned to the national team this past spring but Hwang was reinstated only weeks before this trip to China.

Hwang started her China Masters campaign with an exclamatory win over Bitburger Open champion Liu Xin.  The Korean led the 2007 Asian Junior Champion from start to finish in the first game then played a successful game of catchup in the second to take it 21-12, 21-19.  She followed that up with an easy win over Sabrina Jaquet of Switzerland to enter the main draw.

Oddly enough, in Wednesday’s first round, Hwang will face fellow qualifier Chen Xiaojia, after the Chinese youngster, herself an Asian Junior champion, in 2009, dusted off Youth Olympian Deng Xuan and then Hwang’s teammate Kang Hae Won, both in straight games.

Lee Hyun Il, meanwhile, had two easy wins over Japanese teenager Shohei Hoshino and Korean Han Ki Hoon.  Both Lee and Hwang are joined by three Chinese shuttlers in advancing to the main draw.

The four mixed doubles qualifying spots were destined to be locked up by China and any doubt was removed in the very first match of the day, when 2007 World Junior Champion Zhong Qianxin, playing with He Mu, removed the only foreign challengers in straight games.

Once again, the China Masters is a testing ground for China’s recent top juniors to take on the best from abroad.  In addition to Chen and Zhong, last year’s World Junior champion Tang Jinhua advanced to the first round in mixed, where China will have a whopping 15 pairs, making up just shy of half the entire draw.  In men’s singles, last year’s World Junior Champion Tian Houwei might have come up short in qualifying but both 2008 champion Wang Zhengming and his runner-up Gao Huan are already in the main draw and are looking to taste their first Super Series success.

For complete qualifying results, CLICK HERE