Indonesia’s Jonatan Christie takes Asian badminton crown

SHANGHAI – Indonesia’s Jonatan Christie clinched the Badminton Asia Championships crown on April 14, seeing off Li Shifeng in straight games by playing at a quicker tempo to exploit the home favourite’s apparent tiredness.

Christie defeated the 24-year-old 21-15, 21-16 in the men’s singles final in the Chinese city of Ningbo.

“I didn’t expect to win again after winning the All England and it could be a booster for me personally so that in the future I can be more consistent and better in terms of performance and everything,” said the world No. 5, who in March ended Indonesia’s 30-year wait for the All England men’s singles title.

“The victory was thanks to the playing strategy that I implemented with a faster playing rhythm because I saw that Li Shifeng was quite tired after yesterday’s match in the semi-finals.

“It looked like his leg hurt too. I took advantage of that momentum to push him so that his game wouldn’t improve.”

The early exchanges at the Ningbo Olympic Sports Centre were tight, before the 26-year-old Indonesian started to pull away at 8-7 up, rattling off three straight points to lead 11-7.

The world No. 7 from Jiangxi managed to narrow Christie’s advantage to 15-14 but Christie held on for the win.

The second game started differently, with Christie taking an early 8-3 lead before the Chinese fought back from 17-9 down. Li bagged five straight points to narrow the gap to 17-14, but Christie had enough in the tank to snuff out any hope of a decider.

It was the second straight match where Christie managed to see off a local hope, having beaten top seed and world No. 2 Shi Yuqi in the semi-finals.

Indonesia have now won back-to-back men’s singles titles at this tournament, with Anthony Ginting beating Singapore’s Loh Kean Yew in the 2023 final.

China, meanwhile, have not won the Badminton Asia Championships men’s singles crown since 2017, when Chen Long beat Lin Dan in an all-Chinese final in Wuhan.

However, all was not lost for the local fans, with victory coming earlier in the all-Chinese women’s singles final.

Ninth-ranked Wang Zhiyi swatted aside compatriot and reigning Olympic champion Chen Yufei 21-19, 21-7.

After ending her eight-match losing streak against Chen, Wang said: “It’s not easy. I just got my first win against Chen, which gives me a lot of confidence.”

Wang’s victory came after world No. 1 South Korean An Se-young was dumped out in the quarter-finals on April 12 by China’s He Bingjiao.

An, the top seed in Ningbo, is the favourite to win gold at the Paris Olympics, though she has been struggling with a knee injury.

The men’s doubles title was claimed by third-ranked Chinese pair Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang, who dispatched Malaysian world No. 19 Goh Sze Fei and Nur Izzuddin 21-17, 15-21, 21-10.

South Korea’s world No. 2 pair Baek Ha-na and Lee So-hee won the women’s doubles crown after beating China’s seventh-ranked Zhang Shuxian and Zheng Yu 23-21, 21-12.

The final match on April 14 was the mixed doubles battle between world No. 3 Feng Yanzhe and Huang Dongping and fourth-ranked South Koreans Seo Seung-jae and Chae Yu-jung, with the Chinese duo clawing back from a game down to win 13-21, 21-15, 21-14.

The result gave China three wins out of five titles, an improvement on 2023, when they won only the mixed doubles.

The prestigious annual tournament was the final chance for Asian players to seal a spot at the Olympics, with the window for ranking points closing at the end of April.

The qualification list for the Paris Games will be published on April 30. AFP, XINHUA