Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying (戴資穎) yesterday won her third championship in Dubai, taking just 34 minutes to defeat South Korea’s An Se-young 21-10, 21-14.
Meanwhile, her compatriot Lee Chih-kai (李智凱) also won gold at a gymnastics competition in Cairo.
World No. 4 Tai has lost four of her past five matches against world No. 2 An, but Tai gained an early lead in their Badminton Asia Championships women’s singles match, widening the gap to 17-7 before the end of the first game.
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Photo courtesy of Badmintonphoto
In the second game, Tai started with an 8-0 lead, before An called for an injury-related time-out.
An appeared to be playing with an injured knee.
Tai later lost her concentration, but recovered to maintain an 18-11 lead, before blocking her opponent’s frontcourt smash, and scoring three more points to win.
Photo: CNA
On Saturday, Tai broke a stretch of five straight losses to Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi, beating the world No.1 for the first time in four years to make the final.
Tai’s last win against Yamaguchi was at the Singapore Open in April 2019.
Tai started well, and although the Japanese made a comeback in the second game, Tai held the lead all through the third to win 21-12, 16-21, 21-15 in 53 minutes.
In the men’s doubles, Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and Lee Yang (李洋) withdrew from their semi-final match against Indian duo Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty.
Wang and Lee lost the first game 18-21 and held a 14-13 lead in the second, but were forced to withdraw due to a potential groin strain in Wang’s right thigh.
The Taiwanese pair finished third automatically.
In Cairo, Lee on Saturday won gold in the men’s artistic gymnastics pommel horse during the fourth leg of the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup series.
Lee won 8.533 points for execution for an overall score of 15.033 under the points system introduced by the International Gymnastics Federation. The body updated its rules after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where Lee won a silver medal in the pommel horse.
Lee’s performance had a difficulty of 6.5 degrees, the highest among the eight competitors.
The win was Lee’s first medal and Taiwan’s second in this year’s World Cup series. The event’s previous legs were held in Cottbus, Germany (Feb. 23 to 26), Doha (March 1 to 4) and Baku (March 9 to 12).
Taiwanese Olympian Shiao Yu-jan (蕭佑然) won bronze in the pommel horse event in Doha on March 3.
Lee yesterday said he could not win a medal in the first three legs, because he was trying to adjust his routine.
“I have probably changed my routine four, five times since January,” Lee said. “The movements are all similar; it was only a matter of organizing the sets to see what kind of routine suits me best.”
Lee added that his mindset has changed a lot since March, and he has gradually found his rhythm.
“I haven’t delivered an international achievement since the Tokyo Olympics,” Lee said. “I now feel more assured.”
The next leg of the series is to be held in Varna, Bulgaria, from May 25 to 28. The series is to conclude in Paris on Sept. 17.
Additional reporting by AFP
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