HONG KONG, Sept 15 — China swept all five finals at the Hong Kong Open yesterday, with world number four Li Shifeng easing past India’s Lakshya Sen to claim his second world tour title of the year.
HONG KONG, Sept 15 — China swept all five finals at the Hong Kong Open yesterday, with world number four Li Shifeng easing past India’s Lakshya Sen to claim his second world tour title of the year.
Second seed Li, who dropped just one game throughout the tournament, recovered from a shaky start to defeat the unseeded Sen 21-15, 21-12 at the Hong Kong Coliseum.
“This time my condition wasn’t especially good, physically or mentally, and my training wasn’t very systematic,” Li admitted. “The only way to improve faster is to play more tournaments… it’s about using competition to bring out my inner strength.”
Li, who also beat Sen at the China Open in July, repeated the feat with relative ease. Sen had booked his first final in two years after a tense semi-final victory over Taiwanese crowd favourite Chou Tien-chen.
In the women’s singles, top seed Wang Zhiyi defeated defending champion and compatriot Han Yue 21-14, 24-22, later describing the all-China showdown as “quite tough” given she was not in peak condition, but said the win brought a sense of “emotional release.”
China also secured both doubles titles: Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang rallied to beat India’s Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty 19-21, 21-14, 21-17 in the men’s doubles, while Jia Yifan and Zhang Shuxian outclassed Japan’s Rin Iwanaga and Kie Nakanishi 21-17, 21-15 in the women’s doubles.
The mixed doubles final was another all-China affair, with Feng Yanzhe and Huang Dongping cruising past Guo Xinwa and Chen Fanghui 21-14, 21-14 in just 38 minutes. — AFP
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