Gwangju: Men’s singles No. 1 seed Son Wan Ho of Korea extended his strong display at Korea Masters as the 2016 champion and the winner of the BWF Hong Kong Open earlier this month, secured a crowd-pleasing 21-16, 21-11 victory over Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia in the final.
The victory was Son’s second consecutive win over Lee in their second career meeting. Son defeated Lee in the men’s singles third round at the 2018 Asian Games individual event last August.
In an all-Chinese women’s singles final, the London Olympic Champion Li Xuerui exacted sweet revenge at the Gwangju Women’s University Stadium, beating No. 8 seed Han Yue 21-10, 21-18 in 32 minutes to win her fourth title of the year. Li lost to Han Yue in the semi-final of Syed Modi International last Saturday.
Li Xuerui who was out of action for almost 600 days due to injury in her right knee while playing her semifinals encounter against Carolina Marin at the Rio Olympics 2016, had won the 2018 Lingshui China Masters, 2018 US Open, 2018 Canada Open and now the 2018 Korea Masters.
In addition to the men’s singles, the Korean camp also triumphed men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles finals.
With the support of home crowd, Korea’s unseeded men’s pair Choi Solgyu/Seo Seung Jae of Korea had to fight tooth and nail for 55 minutes on Sunday before finally subduing the No. 8 seeds Po Li-Wei, Wang Chi-Lin of Taiwan 21-12, 17-21, 21-18 to claim the Korea Masters title.
The host was guaranteed the women’s doubles and mixed doubles titles as Korean players have succeeded in monopolizing the finals.
Women’s doubles No. 3 seeds Chang Ye Na/Jung Kyung Eun overcame the 2018 China Open winners and No. 2 seeds Lee So Hee/Shin Seung Chan 21-14, 21-17 for the women’s doubles crown. However, Choi Solgyu who won the men’s doubles title earlier, failed to add another title for himself as he and Shin Seung Chan lost to compatriots Ko Sung-Hyun/Eom Hye Won 12-21, 21-15, 18-21 in a 61-minute thriller.
