Guangdong and Jiangsu enter women's badminton team tourney final

Guangdong and Jiangsu entered the finals of women's badminton team competitions at the China's 11th National Games here on Sunday.

Guangdong, runner-up in last National Games, beat dark horse Hubei 3-0 to take the first final berth.

Liu Jian, world No. 123, gave Guangdong a good start by beating Chen Xi 21-12, 21-11 in a 35-minute match. 2004 Athens Olympic champions Yang Wei and Zhang Jiewen continued Guangdong's winning streak as they pipped Zhao Yunlei and Wang Xiaoli 21-18, 21-8.

Zhao Yunlei is a rising talent, who is dubbed as "Little Gao Ling". Gao is an excellent shuttler who owns 14 world titles.

"Compared with Yang and Zhang, we are so inexperienced." Zhao said after the match.

Zhao's words were echoed by Yang, who said that their opponents were obviously affected by the wind and didn't get used to the court. "They even made some clear faults in cooperation." added Yang.

Xia Jingyun concluded with a 21-18, 21-14 victory over Li Wen, helping Guangdong to a 3-0 victory.

Though former Olympic champion Gao Ling didn't have a chance to play, she didn't regret about that as "semifinal has already levelled the best result of Hubei women's team in National Games history."

Jiangsu's 3-2 win over Hunan proved a hard one.

Jiangsu's Lu Lan, world No. 8, did give it all by defeating Shi Xiaoqian of Hunan, setting a winning tune for Jiangsu. However, after the following three matches, Hunan evened the score 2-2. In the decider, Wang Rong of Jiangsu met no challenge, taking down Chen Xiaojia of Hunan and sending Jiangsu to the finals.

"This is the first time since 12 years ago that Jiangsu made the finals of women's team tourney at the National Games." said Zhang Hongbao, coach of Jiangsu.

"Of course, we are eying the champion," added Zhang." If we can win one doubles match in the final and Lu Lan can play Xie Xingfan, we will stand a good chance of lifting the title."

Source: Xinhua