China nearly swept the board for the second straight week, taking four of the five titles at the KAPAL API Indonesia Open 2024.

Their success in Jakarta followed similar returns from the Singapore Open the previous week, which showed that the team’s preparations for the Olympics were running on well-greased rails.

Everything went to plan for the Chinese, and even Chen Qing Chen and Jia Yi Fan, the only Chinese to finish runners-up, were not particularly upset – Jia Yi Fan said they couldn’t offer much of a challenge to Baek Ha Na/Lee So Hee as she was carrying a minor injury. Baek/Lee thus won their second Super 1000 tournament of the season, following their success at the YONEX All England.

Particularly satisfying for the Chinese must have been Chen Yu Fei’s comeback win over An Se Young, a week after the Korean had outplayed her in Singapore.

Faced with An Se Young’s tremendous retrieving, Chen dared to take the risks. It was she who was the more proactive, putting in explosive bursts and going for the lines. The forceful approach was to pay dividends at the end, with Chen able to extract the narrow openings through which she could force her way.

“I’m very happy with my performance today, it was better than last week,” said Chen, who picked up her first title of the season. “Even though her defence is very good I knew I had to keep attacking and that forced some mistakes from her. I was playing with the drift in the second half of the third game, so I knew I had to take the initiative and attack.”

An Se Young credited her opponent with better control under difficult conditions.

“She used the wind cleverly. The conditions were difficult but she controlled the shuttle very well. The last two weeks have been good performance. I could find my game in the last two weeks. I’m a bit disappointed by my performance today, but even though I lost it was a good learning experience.”

Then there were Shi Yu Qi and Liang Wei Keng/Wang Chang’s dominant performances, as they celebrated their rise to No.1 in next week’s rankings.

Both were challenged in the finals – by Anders Antonsen and Man Wei Chong/Tee Kai Wun respectively – but cruised at the end.

And with Jiang Zhen Bang/Wei Ya Xin having upstaged senior compatriots Zheng Si Wei/Huang Ya Qiong for their first Super 1000 title, China will feel pleased that their next generation is well on track.

WHAT THEY SAID

“Overall I think it was difficult for me to get to No.1 and also it wasn’t a smooth passage for me to the title here. I had a lot of tough matches, so I feel satisfied to win the title.” – Shi Yu Qi

“This is affirmation of our training. For these two tournaments the main purpose was to try new things like our formation, and I feel our performance was satisfactory. If we don’t try new things we don’t know what the outcome will be.” – Liang Wei Keng

“Very happy to win our first Super 1000. It’s unbelievable. We prepared well, we had a good game plan and our executed it perfectly. We had a few lucky points as well.” – Wei Ya Xin, after she and Jiang upset Zheng/Huang

→Results