Kaohsiung: Taiwan has been holding the “Simulated Tokyo Olympic Games” aimed to keep the Taiwanese Olympic-bound athletes active and motivated in the absence of international tournaments due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
On the last day of the badminton competition, World No. 2 men’s singles player Chou Tien Chen was taken to three sets before finally seeing off the challenge of World No. 12 Wang Tzu Wei at Taiwan’s National Sports Training Center on Monday.
Chou had won 7 consecutive international matches against Wang and had to dig deep to come out victorious with 21-19, 15-21, 21-17.
Wang was once ahead with 9-4 in the decider, but Chou started to control the tempo on the court by forcing Wang to commit a lot of unforced errors, allowing him gradually dominating the game.
“Player who can take advantage of the opponent and control the rhythm of the game during a high-intensity competition would always come out as the winner,” said Chou.
Meanwhile, World No. 1 women’s singles player Tai Tzu Ying who was playing against a male opponent for the second day in a row proved to be too much for her, as she lost her match to Tsai Chieh-Hao, a 20-year-old sparring player for the Taiwanese national team.
Tai won her first match against 28-year-old Lin Chia-Hsuan, whose highest men’s singles ranking was 120th in early 2018 on Sunday. However, Lin started each game with a negative 8-points, while Tai began at zero.
Although Tai eventually won the match on Sunday 21-19, 18-21, 21-11, she admitted it was a tough matchup.
In Monday’s match against Tsai, instead of negative 8 points, Tsai started the match with negative 3-points each game. But Tai was too exhausted as she eventually lost to Tsai 21-18, 21-16.
“I played against men in my training sessions, but I never played a real match with male opponent two days in a row,” said Tai.
“If playing against women, I have no problem playing three consecutive days,” added Tai.
