Manila: Lee Zii Jia won Sunday in the 2022 Badminton Asia Championships (BAC) final with a commanding 21-17, 23-21 victory over Indonesia’s Jonatan Christie in 45 minutes.
In the first game, Lee quickly established a 10-6, 19-13 lead to win the game 21-17.
A renowned right-to-the-end competitor, Lee dug deep in the critical moment of the second game when he was down 19-20, 20-21 to reel off three consecutive points to clinch his first-ever BAC title with a 23-21 second game win.
“The victory means a lot to me, especially after I turned pro,” said Lee.
“This is just the beginning of my professional journey, and hopefully more to come. My goal this year is to stabilize my performance, so far, I believe I did pretty well,” added Lee.
“The main factors of my victory today were my concentration and cutting down unforced errors,” explained Lee.
Lee becomes the sixth Malaysian men’s singles player to ever win the BAC title after Teh Kew San (1962), Tan Aik Mong (1971), Rashid Sidek (1991, 1992), Foo Kok Keong (1994), Lee Chong Wei (2006, 2016).
In men’s doubles, World No. 9 Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik were leading 12-6, 18-15 in the first set against World No. 22 Pramudya Kusumawardana/Yeremia Erich Yoche Yacob Rambitan of Indonesia, but they failed to finish the job when it matter the most as they allowed Kusumawardana/Rambitan to come from behind to win the first game 23-21.
The demoralized Chia/Soh were no match for Kusumawardana/Rambitan in the second set. They bowed out to the Indonesian pair 10-21, thus falling short of winning their first international title once again.
In an all-Chinese mixed doubles final, Zheng Siwei/Huang Yaqiong managed to exact revenge for their loss to defending champions – Wang Yilyu/Huang Dongping in the Tokyo Olympics final, by destroying Wang/Huang 21-17, 21-8 for the BAC title.
Earlier, China’s World No. 16 women’s singles player – Wang Zhi Yi got a head start for China when she defeated World No. 2 Akane Yamaguchi of Japan 15-21, 21-13, 21-19 in the first final match-up on Sunday.
The women’s doubles World No. 1 and defending champions Chen Qing Chen/Jia Yi Fan didn’t waste any time Sunday by winning the final 21-11, 21-15 against World No. 23 Rin Iwanaga/Kie Nakanishi of Japan.
