CHINA OPEN 2011 – 1 gold goes west, China best in rest

Denmark’s Boe/Mogensen broke their post-All England title drought to take the only outbound title from the 2011 Li Ning China Open Premier Super Series, where China dominated the other four finals.

By Kevin Kung, Badzine Correspondent.  Photos: Badmintonphoto (live from Shanghai)

Today’s women’s doubles final, which had kicked off the afternoon, began by cooling the crowd down. It was pretty one-sided since Wang Xiaoli / Yu Yang is of a class higher than the young pair Xia Huan / Tang Jinhua, despite the latter’s China Masters crown.  Unlike on that occasion, Wang Xiaoli stayed healthy to the end and without surprise, the World Champions won 21-11, 21-10.

In front of the full crowd in the stadium, the score of women’s singles final stopped at 18-12 of the first game after Wang Xin (pictured right) complained of her right knee injury and declared that she had to retire from the match.  Her compatriot Wang Yihan thus captured the first China Open title of her career and also secured the top seed spot at the Super Series Finals for the second straight year.

Sometimes an “internal match” of China Team can still be entertaining. Men’s singles defending champion Chen Long bowed down to World Champion Lin Dan in two games. But Chen gave the crowd some suspense by dragging Lin to deuce in the second game and lost 24-26 eventually.

There is no doubt that Joachim Fischer Nielsen / Christinna Pedersen is the pair with best hope of beating China’s top mixed double pairs recently. But today they couldn’t make it. The Danish players seemed to be too tired and lost to Zhang Nan / Zhao Yunlei (pictured left) in two games 21-11, 21-14. Last Sunday Zhang/Zhao had beaten them in three in the Hong Kong Open final.

Fischer Nielsen/Pedersen may have lost their final, but there was still some good news for Denmark. Mathias Boe / Carsten Mogensen (pictured below) beat the Korean pair Ko Sung Hyun / Yoo Yeong Seong in straight games 21-17, 21-13 to win the men’s doubles title, their first since winning the All England more than eight months ago.

“Can´t believe we have done it, winning the China Open, as only the second Danish men´s doubles pair in the history,” said Boe and Mogensen on their Facebook page.  “We are so happy and proud.  Ohhh what a feeling.”

The Danes are now apparently heading back to Europe, even though they’ll need to be back in China in two weeks’ time to defend their title at the OSIM BWF World Super Series Finals.  Both they and fellow finalists Ko/Yoo, through their impressive performances this week, ensured themselves seeded positions in Liuzhou.

Final results
WD: Wang Xiaoli / Yu Yang (CHN) [1] bt Tang Jinhua / Xia Huan 21-11, 21-10
WS: Wang Yihan (CHN) [2] bt Wang Xin (CHN) [3] 18-12, Retired
MD: Mathias Boe / Carsten Mogensen (DEN) [3] bt Ko Sung Hyun / Yoo Yeon Seong (KOR) [4] 21-17, 21-13
XD: Zhang Nan / Zhao Yunlei (CHN) [1] bt Joachim Fischer Nielsen / Christinna Pedersen (DEN) [3] 21-11, 21-14
MS: Lin Dan (CHN) [3] bt Chen Long (CHN) [2] 21-17, 26-24

Click here for complete results