2008 WUC Badminton: Day 3
May 8th, 2008
China Manages to Remain on the Top
The Chinese team was, for the second time, the winner of the team competition of the World University Badminton Championship. China reached the gold medal after defeating the delegation from Thailand in the final, for 3-0. The teams of Korea and Poland classified in the third place. In the final, China only needed three matches to get the victory. Junjie Sun and Xiaoli Sun lost the first game of mixed doubles match (21-15). However, the Chinese double seemed to wake up in the second game, and won for the same result that had lost previously (21-15). In the last and decisive game, China didn’t give any chances to their opponents and won 21-14. Pengyu Du increased the Chinese advantage in the final. The Chinese player beat Sittichai Viboonsin, from Thailand, 2-0. It was a very competitive and well played match. The first game ended with a strong smash by Du and with a 23-21 for China. In the second game China won more easily (21-17).
The women world university champion and 19th player of the world ranking, Yihan Wang, decided the final with a triumph with 2-0 against the 33rd ranked player, Salakjit Ponsana. The beginning of the first game was very balanced, but the committing of the Chinese player made the difference in the most disputed plays. So, Wang won the first game 21-16. In the second game, Wang didn’t give any chances to Ponsana to balance the match. The Chinese player won the last game of the competition, 21-13. Before the final, the selection of China defeated Korea in the semi-finals, 3-0. Throughout the whole competition, the Chinese Team won all the matches and showed why it was since the beginning, the favourite to win the Championship. In the round robin, the Chinese defeated Switzerland and France, both for the maximum result, 5-0. Until the victory in the final of the tournament, China defeated also the rivals from Japan, in the quarter-finals, 3-1.
Until the final, Thailand defeated Malaysia (4-1), Macau China (5-0) and Japan (3-2), in the group stage. After that, the Thailand selection eliminated Indonesia, with a score of 3-0 in the quarter-finals, and Poland in the semi-finals (3-1). During the morning, Malaysia defeated Great Britain, in the confrontation for the 11th place, with a 3-2 score. The match was even-handed until the last point. Tomorrow starts the individual competition. The delegations from Italy, Austria, Hungary, Finland and Australia will join the championship.
Click on the link below to get the latest news and results from this Championship
http://www.badminton08.uminho.pt/default.aspx
