Hong Kong's hope of winning their first medal at the National Games was dashed last night when the men's badminton team went down 3-1 to Fujian in the third place playoff in Kunshan Sports Centre.
Only Liu Kwok-wa and Albertus Njoto were able to secure a victory in the second doubles as Hong Kong were outclassed by their opponents in every department. Despite the results, coach Chan Chi-choi was not disappointed with the overall performance of the Hong Kong team.
'The National Games is always a tough competition for badminton as the standard of China in this sport is extremely high,' said Chan.
'We have gone through the qualifiers, and then finished second in the preliminaries. Although we lost in the final hurdle of winning a medal for Hong Kong, the players have all done a very good job.
'The match against Fujian was not easy as they boast three China national team players. We had changed our line-up in an attempt to deceive the opposition, but it did not work the way we wanted. Fujian are the better side and the results were not unexpected.'
Hong Kong fielded youngster Chan Yan-kit in the opening singles, hoping to meet Fujian's number one Chen Hong, but unfortunately the opposition also changed their line-up with another national team player Xie Xin playing in the opening tie.
