Korea’s Kim beats Asian Youth Games winner at home

Just days after Qin Jinjing beat world #17 Busanan Ongbamrungphan to win gold at the Asian Youth Games in Nanjing, she went north to Weifang and came up short against Korea’s Kim Hyo Min.  The match was part of the 21st Annual China-Korea-Japan Junior Challenge.

The event, which rotates among the three nations in late August each year, saw a full-strength Korean team take on a Chinese squad missing a few girls’ doubles players and their top boys’ singles players.  Japan, which had none of its top stars but still edged out the Chinese boys.

Kim’s win comes, of course, just as the girls’ singles showdown brewing for the BWF World Junior Badminton Championships in Bangkok later this autumn was already getting more interesting with Qin throwing her hat into the ring.  Korea hasn’t put up a significant challenge in the girls’ singles at the World Juniors since Bae Yeon Ju reached the final in 2007.

Kim Hyo Min had already had some success outside of the major junior events, however.  She won both the Korean Junior International and the Surabaya Cup in 2012 and bounced back from eventual winner Nozomi Okuhara dominating her at the World Juniors to beat World Championship quarter-finalist Carolina Marin at the Scottish International.

Meanwhile, Asian Under-17 Champion He Bingjiao – who, incidentally, was responsible for eliminating Kim from last month’s Asian Juniors – won all of her matches in Weifang. Kim, Qin, and He are clearly also contenders for the title in Bangkok, even if the draw is already likely to be stacked with the likes of Busanan Ongbamrungphan, Nozomi Okuhara, Akane Yamaguchi, Aya Ohori, and possibly P. V. Sindhu or even Ratchanok Intanon.

Boys’ team results:
Korea  5, Japan 0
Korea 4, China 1
Japan 3, China 2

Girls’ team results:
Korea 4, Japan 1
China 3, Korea 2
China 5, Japan 0