Tang Chun-man and Tse Ying-suet advance to World Championships mixed doubles quarter-finals as other Hong Kong shuttlers tumble out
- Hong Kong’s seventh-ranked pair beat Denmark’s Mathias Christiansen and Alexandra Boje in round 16 to seal their last-eight place
- Men’s singles player Lee Cheuk-yiu loses to world number three Anders Antonsen with two women’s doubles and mixed doubles teams eliminated
Mixed doubles pair Tang Chun-man and Tse Ying-suet were Hong Kong’s only survivors after the round of 16 matches at the badminton World Championships in Huelva, Spain.
The world number seven combination were given a stern test by Denmark’s Mathias Christiansen and Alexandra Boje before sealing a 21-15, 16-21, 21-16 victory to advance to the quarter-finals. The pair lost to the Danes in the French Open semi-finals in October.
Tang and Tse will now meet Mark Lamsfuss and Isabel Lohau, of Germany, the 11th seeds, for a place in the semi-finals. The Hong Kong pair were beaten by the same opponents in the HYLO Open in Germany in early November but won their two previous encounters, including a victory in the group stage of the Tokyo Olympics this summer.
Head coach Tim He Yiming said before the tournament their target would be reaching the quarter-finals and anything past that would be a bonus.
Tang and Tse have had a demanding schedule since they started training and competing in October after the world governing body scheduled seven tournaments in a row in Europe and Asia to counter some of the travel restrictions brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.
But the Hong Kong pair were able to adapt to the hectic schedule, reaching the final of the Indonesia Masters and the semi-finals of the year-end World Tour Finals and the French Open.
They reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Championships in Nanjing before losing to China’s Wang Yilyu and Huang Dongping, the Tokyo Olympic mixed doubles champions.
