Men’s singles title drought continues for China

PETALING JAYA: It’s heartache again for China in the men’s singles after firing blanks in the event they used to dominate.

On Friday, their last man standing Shi Yuqi (pic), suffered a meltdown in the opening game before losing 10-21, 19-21 to Kodai Naraoka of Japan in the quarter-finals of the World Championships at the Royal Arena in Copenhagen.

Earlier, Zhao Junpeng, Lu Guangzu and Li Shifeng have crashed out in the first, second and third rounds respectively.

Ironically, Yuqi is the last men’s singles from China who reached the final before losing to Kento Momota in the 2018 edition.

Before that China had enjoyed a golden era in the men’s singles with players like Lin Dan, Chen Long, Sun Jun, Zhao Jianhua, Han Jin and Yang Yang making their presence felt in the world meet. Even their second-stringers had the quality to beat stars from other nations.

While they seem to be struggling in the men’s singles, China continue to ooze class in the other departments.

They will have two representatives in two finals – Zheng Siwei-Huang Yaqiong in the mixed doubles and Chen Qingchen-Jia Yifan in the women’s doubles. In an all-China semi-finals, Siwei-Yaqiong beat Jiang Zhen-bang-Wei Yaxin while Qingchen-Yifan knocked out Zheng Shuxian-Zheng Yu respectively.

In the men’s doubles, Liang Wengkeng-Wang Chang are assured of a bronze medal after setting a meeting against Denmark’s Kim Astrup-Anders Skaarup Rasmussen while women’s singles shuttler Chen Yufei did well to reach the last four to set up a meeting against An Se-young of South Korea.

Since taking part in the world meet in 1983 edition, China have always returned home at least with a world title. In fact, they swept all the five titles at stake in 1987, 2010 and 2011.