Singapore: The fans at the Singapore Indoor Stadium were fortunate to enjoy a series of highly entertaining matches on Saturday, as the two men’s singles and two women’s singles semi-finals have produced some very high level of badminton competitions.
After shocking China’s Olympic champion Chen Long 21-8, 21-19 in the men’s singles quarter-final on Friday, seventh-seeded Indonesian, Anthony Sinisuka Ginting battled for 79 minutes against defending champion and No. 2 seed Chou Tien Chen of Taiwan before winning 21-17, 18-21, 21-14.
Although Ginting sustained a tough fall while diving for a shuttle at 16-12 in the decider that injured the back of his playing hand and required a medical attention to stop the bleeding from his peeled-off skin, he continued his strong attack games to clinch his fifth win over Chou in nine career meetings to set up a submit clash with Kento Momota in the final.
“Ginting played an extremely great match. I did my best, but he was just playing better than me in the semi-final,” said Chou after the match.
Meanwhile, Momota rallied back from 0-6, 6-16 in the second set to scored his 12th victory in 14 meetings over Viktor Axelsen of Denmark. Momota won at 21-15, 21-18 in 46 minutes.
In women’s singles, after losing the first game 15-21, and facing four match points in the second set, World No. 1 staged a remarkable recovery to beat World No. 4 Akane Yamaguchi 15-21, 24-22, 21-19 in 57 minutes of the three-set thriller.
“We just played against each other at last week’s Malaysia Open, and we are familiar with each other’s playing styles,” said Tai.
“We are both short players (Tai is 1.63m and Yamaguchi is 1.56m) who are prepared to run about on the court but maybe I am fitter because I am slightly taller than her?” added Tai.
Tai will now face World No. 3 Nozomi Okuhara of Japan in Sunday’s final.
The men’s doubles semi-final saw Japan’s No. 3 seeds Takeshi Kamura/Keigo Sonoda stunned World No. 1 Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo of Indonesia to set up a final encounter with another Indonesian pair, No. 4 seeds Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan on Sunday.
