MALAYSIA MASTERS 2015 Finals – Pedersen starts with 2 golds

Denmark’s Christinna Pedersen began 2015 with two titles at the Yonex-Sunrise Malaysia Masters Grand Prix Gold.

By Don Hearn.  Photos: Badmintonphoto and Don Hearn (archives)

She may not have finished off 2014 with two Superseries Finals titles as she did a year earlier but Christinna Pedersen of Denmark made the best start possible to 2015.  Pedersen won both the women’s and mixed doubles at the Yonex-Sunrise Malaysia Masters Grand Prix Gold on Sunday.

Christinna Pedersen has a habit of finding success in Malaysia in January.  Three years ago, she and Kamilla Rytter Juhl (pictured top) won the Malaysia Open Superseries, then in the 2013 edition, she won mixed with Joachim Fischer Nielsen.  They came up just short in the mixed final last January but on Sunday, She and Rytter Juhl started off proceedings by winning a straightforward contest with Japan’s Naoko Fukuman / Kurumi Yonao.

Much as Fukuman/Yonao had done earlier in the tournament, their compatriot Nozomi Okuhara got the better of a player she had displaced from the national A team.  Sayaka Takahashi was playing in her first final since she won the German Open last winter.  She was no match for her 19-year-old compatriot, who took the women’s singles final in Kuching in straight games.

Korea’s Jeon Hyeok Jin made the final on his last trip to Borneo, when he was runner-up at the Asian Juniors in Kota Kinabalu two years ago.  But this was a much bigger stage – the 19-year-old’s first Grand Prix Gold final, in fact – and this time he can feel good about having been beaten by a former world #1.

Jeon can also take solace in the fact that he did a much better job of pushing compatriot Lee Hyun Il (pictured above) this time than he did at the Jeonju Grand Prix in November.  On Sunday, Jeon won the first game before letting the next two slip away and seeing Lee take another title in Kuching, after the Malaysia International in the autumn.

Praveen Jordan came in as the only returning champion on finals day at the Malaysia Masters.  He and Debby Susanto (pictured left) made it as difficult as they could but just couldn’t prevent two late-game pushes by Joachim Fischer Nielsen and Christinna Pedersen that gave the Danes the mixed title.

The men’s doubles final featured three players who were looking for their first ever Grand Prix Gold title.  Chen Hung Ling of Chinese Taipei may have been the only one to have actually won one – or to have won a Superseries, for that matter – but his experience just wasn’t enough. Kenta Kazuno / Kazushi Yamada (pictured bottom) managed to stay on the offensive far more in the deciding game and Chen and Wang Chi-Lin just ran out of ideas for how to counter the punishing attacks, particularly from Kazuno, while Yamada kept the pressure on from the front.

Final results
WD: Christinna Pedersen / Kamilla Rytter Juhl (DEN) [1] beat Naoko Fukuman / Kurumi Yonao (JPN)  21-14, 21-14
WS: Nozomi Okuhara (JPN) [4] beat Sayaka Takahashi (JPN) [3]  21-13, 21-17
MS: Lee Hyun Il (KOR) beat Jeon Hyeok Jin (KOR)  19-21, 21-13, 21-15
XD: Joachim Fischer Nielsen / Christinna Pedersen (DEN) [1] beat Praveen Jordan / Debby Susanto (INA) [2]  21-18, 21-18
MD: Kenta Kazuno / Kazushi Yamada (JPN) beat Chen Hung Ling / Wang Chi-Lin (TPE) [8]   21-19, 14-21, 21-17

Click here for complete results