Dubai: Chen Long of China got off to a good start on day 1 of the BWF Superseries Finals campaign with a victory over Kenichi Tago.
Kenichi Tago took a three-point lead over Chen Long in the first five minutes of the game and smashed his way through grabbing another point on a trot. The number one seed Chen however managed to reduce the gap by defending strongly and chasing the shuttle for a smart smash across to the Japanese rival.
After few more adjustments, Chen eventually able to master his Japanese opponent with a 21-11, 21-14 win in 47 minutes.
“It took me some time to adjust to the court surface and that explains my slow start,’ Chen told media.
“But once I got going I was able to dictate and dominate the pace,” he added.
In the morning session, it was a superb start for the two Danish players as they won their fixtures in the men’s singles convincingly. Second seed Jan O Jorgensen showed why he is one of the favorites for the Superseries with a convincing 21-15, 21-19 win over last year’s runner-up Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia, while fellow Dane Hans-Kristian Vittinghus sprung the biggest surprise of the day with a 21-13, 21-16 win over South Korea’s Son Wan Ho.
K. Srikanth of India also gave the crowd even more reason to rejoice as he fought back from losing the first game to win the next two and second a hard-fought result against an aggressive Japanese opponent Kento Momota 15-21, 21-16, 21-10. “I went in with a strategy but found that it was not working, so I had to make the changes in the second,” Srikanth said.
Results
Men’s Singles:
Jan O Jorgensen (Denmark) bt Tommy Sugiarto (Indonesia) 21-15, 21-9.
Hans-Kristian Vittinghus (Denmark) bt Son Wan Ho (South Korea) 21-13, 21-16.
Chen Long (China) bt Kenichi Tago (Japan) 21-11, 21-14.
K. Srikanth bt Kento Momota 15-21, 21-16, 21-10.
Men’s Doubles:
Lee Yong Dae/Yoo Yeon Seong (South Korea) bt Ko Sung Hyun/Shin Baek Choel (South Korea) 21-14, 21-11.
Chai Biao/Hong Wei (China) bt Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan (Indonesia) 11-7 (retd.).
Hiroyuki Endo/Kenichi Hayakawa (Japan) bt Liu Xiaolong/Qiu Zihan (China) 21-7, 21-12.
