Can Guoyu return to the pinnacle of singles? The Badminton World Championships kicked off today. Combination | World Championships | Singles
Today, Beijing time, the World Badminton Championships kicked off in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. This competition is also a points competition for the Paris Olympics, so the competition will be particularly fierce.
On August 17th, 44 national badminton representatives arrived in Denmark. In the next two days, the team members underwent training and adaptation to the field, familiarizing themselves with the wind direction and lighting conditions inside the field. The women's doubles players underwent a three to three training, and coach Tao Jiaming also participated. Other individual events also conducted one-on-one adversarial training.
Last year at the World Championships, Guoyu participated in events other than men's doubles and won 2 gold, 1 silver, and 2 bronze medals. After a year of hard work, all four pairs of Chinese badminton men's doubles have qualified and achieved full participation. Among them, the young "post-2000" duo Liang Weikeng/Wang Chang participated in the World Championships for the first time, and currently ranked third in the world, they are also the highest ranked men's doubles duo in China, attracting much attention.
"Both Liang Weikeng and I are young athletes. This is our first time participating in the World Championships, and the difficulty and weakness lies in the lack of experience at this level of competition. Our goal in participating in the World Championships is to first accumulate experience, learn from experts, and then actively strive for results, and go as far as possible." Wang Chang said.
In both women's doubles and mixed doubles events, the Chinese team is the defending champion. Chen Chenchen/Jia Yifan and Zheng Siwei/Huang Yaqiong have both won the World Championships three times and are currently ranked first in each event. This time, the two pairs will compete for the fourth World Championships championship. Since the Indian gold tournament in early 2014, Chen Chenchen/Jia Yifan have been partnering for almost 10 years. This time, they are competing as defending champions with a clear goal of striving to defend their title, while also preparing for difficulties and fighting against every pair of women's doubles opponents to the end.
Also vying to defend their titles are the mixed doubles world champions Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong. After achieving a dazzling 10 championships in a year of restructuring last year, their form has fluctuated slightly this year. However, as a seasoned combination, they will keep their best form at the World Championships.
Compared to the doubles event, Guoyu has been absent from the championship in two singles events for a long time. After Chen Long won the men's singles championship in 2015, no Chinese player laughed until the end. Nowadays, the men's singles belong to the era of Dane Anselon. As the world number one, Tokyo Olympic champion, and defending world champion, he is undoubtedly the biggest favorite to win the championship as he plays at home. In this match, the Chinese team had Li Shifeng, Shi Yuqi, Lu Guangzu, and Zhao Junpeng competing, but overall they did not have the strength to win the championship. However, the national badminton men's singles team could compete against each opponent, strive for more victories, earn more Olympic points, and lay a solid foundation for participating in the Paris Olympics.
Since Wang Yihan won the women's singles championship in 2011, no Chinese team player has achieved their dream of winning the World Championships for 12 years. The biggest hope for Guoyu to win the championship this time is still Chen Yufei, but opponents such as South Korean prodigy An Seok ying, who has already won 7 championships this year, and defending champion and Japanese star Sai Yamaguchi are very strong. Chen Yufei stated that she will give her all to play every game well.
