CHINESE TAIPEI MASTERS 2016 – One step up for Tang and Tse

Tang Chun Man and Tse Ying Suet did one better than last weekend as they captured the Chinese Taipei Masters Grand Prix title in just their fourth tournament together.

Photos: Badmintonphoto (live)

The 2016 Grand Prix circuit may be a short one, down to 7 events from 9 in 2015, but it has produced a bumper crop of first-time major titles.  Already this year, in Canada, Vietnam, and Brazil, most of the winners were standing atop the podium for the first time and if that wasn’t the case with the Dutch Open this past weekend, a few hours earlier, it was new arrivals taking the accolades at the Chinese Taipei Masters Grand Prix event.

One of the newest of these was Hong Kong mixed pairing Tang Chun Man (pictured) and Tse Ying Suet.  Tse already has a Superseries title to her name in women’s doubles but for her partner Tang, last weekend’s runner-up performance at the Thailand Open involved the first semi-final appearance of his career in a major tournament.

Apart from Tse, the only Superseries winner in action in Taipei on Sunday was Malaysia’s Liew Daren.  Liew, whose French Open title back in 2012 came just a few weeks after Tse’s victory in Japan, was unable to complete his match, however.  After dropping two games in extra points to India’s Sourabh Varma (pictured), the Malaysian retired at 3-all in the third game.

It was Liew’s first major final since that victory in 2012 but for Varma, this victory was a long time coming.  He was still a teenager when he appeared in the India Grand Prix Gold final in 2011 and he had made one appearance since but he had to wait until Taipei to take his first major tournament victory.

The first two finals of the day were played between familiar finals day faces, however.  Both women’s doubles finalists already had Grand Prix Gold titles this year and it was Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota (pictured below) who added the Taiwan title to the one they had from New Zealand earlier this year.

The second match on court featured the same finalists as this year’s U. S. Open and the result was also the same, with Ayumi Mine coming out on top.  Her opponent and compatriot Saena Kawakami, however, already picked up her first Grand Prix Gold and Grand Prix titles last year, before her 17th birthday.

Last up was actually the only chance for a home finalist to take a title.  While their compatriots were waking up in the Netherlands and preparing to  earn two Grand Prix titles there, Chen Hung Ling and Wang Chi Lin fought hard at home, pushing the last two games to extra points.  However, in the end it was a first time Grand Prix title for Indonesia’s Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto.

The Chinese Taipei Masters was the first Grand Prix tournament to try out the BWF’s latest new scoring system idea, which involved the best of five games to 11 points each.  Unlike the 5×11 system trialled last year, this one included extra points.  The men’s doubles final, which went the full five games, three of which were decided by two-point margins, was the longest of the day but still clocked in short of the one-hour mark and the shortest match of the day took just 21 minutes.

Not only did Chen and Wang not finish with their first title as a pair but they now are left with just three days to get to Denmark and adjust to jet lag before taking on the mighty Boe and Mogensen in the first round of the Denmark Open Superseries Premier.

Final results:
WD:  Yuki Fukushima / Sayaka Hirota (JPN) [1] beat Shiho Tanaka / Koharu Yonemoto (JPN) [4]  12-10, 11-5, 11-7
WS:  Ayumi Mine (JPN) [3] beat Saena Kawakami (JPN)  12-10, 7-11, 11-9, 12-10
MS:  Sourabh Varma (IND) beat Liew Daren (MAS)  12-10, 12-10, 3-3 [Retired]
XD:  Tang Chun Man / Tse Ying Suet (HKG) beat Ryota Taohata / Koharu Yonemoto (JPN)  11-3, 11-7, 14-12
MD:  Fajar Alfian / Muhammad Rian Ardianto (INA) beat Chen Hung Ling / Wang Chi-Lin (TPE) [1]  11-6, 11-6, 11-13, 9-11, 12-10

Click here for complete results