[Asian Games] Chinese Media "Korea's Badminton is on a Roll... Ahn Se-young is Likely to Win"
Ahead of the Hangzhou Asian Games, voices expressing caution over Korean badminton's performance emerged from Chinese state media.
Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, posted an article titled 'China on the hunt for medals amid challenges from rivals' on its English-language website, Xinhua Net, on the 22nd. 온라인카지노
Chinese badminton swept three gold medals among seven specific events at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games, including men's team, women's doubles, and mixed doubles.
The remaining four were shared between Indonesia (men's singles and doubles), Japan (women's team), and Taiwan (women's singles).
On the other hand, Korea suffered the humiliation of receiving no medals for the first time in 40 years since the 1978 Bangkok Games and returned home lonely.
However, Korean badminton has seen a rapid rise in power in five years, including the emergence of Ahn Se-young, the world's No. 1 women's singles player.
Shinhwa Net cautioned, “Japan and Indonesia are still competitive, and Korea, which performed poorly in Jakarta, has recently been on the rise.”
In particular, she analyzed Ahn Se-young, saying, "She is only 21 years old this season, and she has won 9 titles in competitions," and "the possibility of winning the women's singles gold medal is expected to be very high."
He introduced his country's Yufei Chen, Akane Yamaguchi (Japan), and Tai Tzu-ying (Taiwan) as 'strong challengers'.
Ahn Se-young swept gold medals in nine competitions this year, including the World Individual Championships, All England Open, and China Open, and even reached No. 1 in the world rankings.
Mixed doubles Seo Seung-jae and Chae Yu-jung were mentioned as dark horses for this tournament.
Xinhua Net said, “(China’s) Zheng Shiwei and Huang Ya-chong (world’s No. 1) are the strongest, but they are in a bleak state after recently losing twice in a row to Seo Seung-jae and Cai Yu-jeong.”
Seo Seung-jae and Chae Yu-jeong won their first win after 9 out of 10 periods against Zheng Si-wei and Huang Ya-chong in the final of the World Championships last month, and won two consecutive matches in the quarterfinals of this month's China Open.
The Asian Games badminton competition will be held for four days starting on the 28th, with individual matches taking place from October 2nd to 7th.