CHINA LEAGUE 2011 – Qingdao repeat as champions!

The two-year-old China Badminton League closed its chapter on the annual badminton calendar on Saturday, with Qingdao declared champion and Hunan following closely behind with Bayi tailing along. Coincidentally, these three names in order displayed a complete duplicate of the final results last year.

By Ee Lyn, Badzine Correspondent.  Photos: China Foto Press

On Saturday, April 30^th Beijing time, the China League’s defending champion, Qingdao Beer took on the previous year’s runner-up Hunan Xiangcai Securities in a final battle.

According to the league’s regulations, a team is declared champion if placed top of the list twice at the end of both cycles. If a different team grabs the first place in the second cycle, the team with a higher ranking within top four in the other cycle wins.

With a #1 finish in the first cycle, the Qingdao-Hunan match on Saturday was the utmost deciding match for the former team, who were still fighting for the last ticket into the top four of the second cycle, hoping to grab the final victory of the league. If first cycle’s runner-up Hunan had won, it would have been a taste of victory for them instead, while Qingdao would have fallen off to the 7^th place in the cycle, ending the season only as the second runner-up.

Just a step so far for Hunan

In the first match, featuring the women’s doubles between Qingdao and Hunan, Tian Qing / Xia Huan defeated Qingdao’s twins Luo Ying / Luo Yu in straight games.

Following was the men’s singles match, where Qingdao sent youngster Liu Jingru who once almost upset the superior Lin Dan in a meeting between the two, to match against Hunan’s top singles star Bao Chunlai (pictured). The hopeful youngster quaked Bao at the start, grabbing the first game 21-18, only to see the experienced Bao Chunlai twist the match into a 21-7, 21-13 victory on his side in the following games.

Smelling the scent of victory with a 2-0 lead at the moment, Hunan placed Chai Biao / Zhang Wen, hoping to eliminate Qingdao’s jewel Fu Haifeng / Shen Ye (pictured below) and call themselves champions of the league. However, Fu Haifeng’s infamous smashes smashed Hunan’s hope of an easy win, as they finally earned Qingdao’s first point of the day by beating Chai/Zhang 21-15, 21-11.

In the fourth and most anticipated match of the day, Qingdao’s World Championship runner-up Wang Xin (pictured top) gobbled an easy win against 2009 Asian Junior Champion Chen Xiaojia, contributing to the heart-stirring 2-2 tie between the potential champion teams.

Finally, it was Qingdao’s Qiu Zihan and Ma Jin who dealt better with extreme pressure compared to Hunan’s Zheng Bo and Tian Qing. With Qiu/Ma’s 21-11, 21-19 win, Qingdao dramatically accomplished their complete come-from-behind table-turning against Hunan, winning their fourth team tie and successfully being placed fourth in the second cycle, nailing their champion spot of the China League 2011.

Top three, yet again

The defending champions Qingdao, who placed first in the previous cycle and fourth in the next, became the only club to fulfill the league’s champion criteria of “being first in one cycle and placed within top four in the other”, allowing them to be rightfully declared League Champion of the year.

Hunan, on the other hand, who ended up second in both cycles, became the league’s runner-up again as they did last year. While Bayi, the club under the lead of Lin Dan shared the same luck, ending up as the second runner-up yet again.

Final results:
Winner: QINGDAO Beer
Runner-up: HUNAN Xiangcai Securities
2^nd Runner-up: BAYI Dongling Refineries

4^th place: WUHAN Hubei Autocity
5^th place: ZHEJIANG Yinjiang
6^th place: GUANGZHOU Yueyu
7^th place: JIANGSU Yonex
8^th place: SHANGHAI Zwick