CHINESE TAIPEI OPEN 2010 Finals – Cheng beats Bae again

Simon Santoso of Indonesia and home favourite Cheng Shao Chieh (pictured) picked up the singles titles at the 2010 Yonex Chinese Taipei Open Grand Prix Gold on Sunday, sending Korea home with only the two golds from their all-Korean finals.  Lee Yong Dae and Jung Jae Sung will be hoping their men’s doubles title will be a springboard to a World Championship title after two runner-up finishes.

By Don Hearn, Badzine Correspondent.  Photos: BadmintonPhoto (archives)

Chinese Taipei’s Cheng Shao Chieh had to work for it but she became the only player to defend her title in Taipei on Sunday.  Just as she had a year earlier, she denied Korea’s Bae Seung Hee a first major tournament win.  It was anything but easy for local shuttler, however.  After taking the first game easily, she had a promising 19-16 lead in the second but although she earned 3 match points, she couldn’t put it away and the 26-year-old Korean took it 26-24 to send the match to a decider.  Then it was Cheng’s turn to rain on Bae’s parade as the Korean’s commanding 17-13 lead was erased by an 8-point run that gave the defending champion her second title at home.

After the match, Cheng told Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) that the match went according to script: “It just wasn’t a script that I wrote. Otherwise, I would have had myself winning in the second set.

“I just want to do well every time I play,” CNA quoted Cheng as saying. “Otherwise, I would be letting down the fans who are supporting me. I was very moved by their support.”

Simon Santoso (pictured) followed that up by beating another Korean challenger to regain a title he last won in 2008.  Shon Wan Ho, playing in his first major international final, did not have what it took to beat a third Indonesian in a row and Simon took the match by a decisive 21-14 21-11.

Indonesia had, of course, already booked a gold with an all-Indonesian mixed doubles final, a repeat from a week ago in Macau.  However, this match was the opposite of last week as it lasted nearly twice as long and gave Hendra Aprida Gunawan / Vita Marissa the gold only after battling to a narrow 22-20, 14-21, 22-20 victory.  And so, after 4 runner-up finishes at big tournaments in just over a year as a pair, Gunawan and Marissa finally made it to the top of the podium as they head into the World Championships, both for the first time since 2007.

The other two titles had already gone to Korea, by virtue of all-Korean finals.  Lee Yong Dae had a rare showdown with his childhood friend and partner Cho Gun Woo.  The two still play together regularly in domestic tournaments and so have only played opposite one another on four occasions, in international tournaments, since Cho began playing them in 2007.

This time was to be no different from the other four, however, as Lee Yong Dae and Jung Jae Sung (pictured) steamrolled past their compatriots 21-10, 21-16 to take their first title in Taiwan and their second of the year since they began the year winning at home at the Korea Open Super Series.

If Jung and Lee are hoping for some momentum going into the World Championships, not so for the other Korean pairs.  Cho Gun Woo, despite playing in five major international finals since April and collecting a mixed and a men’s doubles title, will not be making the trip to Paris as his partnership with Kwon is too new.  Things are even more complicated for the women’s doubles competitors as Lee Hyo Jung and Kim Min Jung were paired up starting at the Uber Cup finals in May and Lee Kyung Won and Yoo Hyun Young are a scratch pairing.

In fact, after the victory in Taipei by Uber Cup heroines Kim/Lee, the two veterans in the final will get the chance to take a break while Kim Min Jung will go back to her former partner Ha Jung Eun and Yoo will pick up where she and her longtime partner Jung Kyung Eun left off after their Hanoi International win in April as these two are the only pairs representing Korea in Paris.

For complete results from the 2010 Yonex Chinese Taipei Open Grand Prix Gold, CLICK HERE