Suzhou: Late in the decider, China’s World No. 5 Liu Yuchen/Ou Xuanyi were trailing 16-20 in the third set against World No 3 Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi of Japan in the men’s doubles match. If Hoki/Kobayashi could win one more point, Japan would beat China 3-1 to advance to the 2023 Sudirman Cup final.
Highlights of Liu Yuchen/Ou Xuanyi of China vs. Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi of Japan in the 2023 Sudirman Cup semi-finals:
Just when the home fans were anticipating a defeat to Japan, nobody could have foreseen Liu/Ou pulling off a gutsy comeback by saving four match points, followed by two additional points after the deuce to ultimately beat Hoki/Kobayashi 17-21, 21-19, 22-20 to level the overall score between China and Japan at 2-2 and sent the tie down to the wire.
The epic win from Liu/Ou in the men’s doubles match was a huge morale boost for Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan in the women’s doubles match that followed. The World No. 1 Chen/Jia entered the court with a high-flying spirit and put up an impressive performance to dismantle World No. 7 Yuki Fukushima/Sayaka Hirota 21-11, 21-6 to send China into the 2023 Sudirman Cup. Chen/Jia’s performance was so impressive, in fact, Chen Qingchen could barely absorb it as she was laying on the court for a long time with a lot of emotion after Hirota’s shot to the backcourt was out of bound, thus, giving China the match point. Chen/Jia beat Fukushima/Hirota 21-11, 21-6.
Earlier, Kyohei Yamashita/Naru Shinoya of Japan beat Feng Yan Zhe/Huang Dong Ping of China 26-24, 18-21, 24-22 in the mixed doubles match; before Shi Yuqi outlasted Kodai Naraoka 13-21, 21-15, 21-17 in the men’s singles match to level the overall score at 1-1. World No. 1 Akane Yamaguchi then gave Japan a 2-1 lead when she overcame the Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Chen Yufei 21-14, 21-15.
Compared to China, Japan, and Korea, the Malaysian team showed a below-par performance on Saturday as the mixed doubles and men’s doubles completely collapsed at the most critical moment. After Malaysia lost to Korea 1-3 in another Sudirman Cup semi-finals, there were many messages on social critiquing the lack of fighting spirit from the Malaysian players, and we hope this is not true, some messages were mentioning Malaysian players could have been involved in some illegal betting which caused them to lose on purpose or to not put their best effort into winning the match. Regardless, hope the Malaysian team could regroup and redeem themselves in future tournaments.
Highlights of Malaysia vs. Korea in the 2023 Sudirman Cup semi-finals:
