South Korea top Uber Cup Asian qualifiers

KUALA LUMPUR: South Korea defeated Taiwan 3-1 to emerge as champions of the Uber Cup Asian Zone Qualifying round Saturday but their Thomas Cup team went down tamely against Malaysia in their semi final-match.

Malaysia defeated South Korea 3-0 while China recorded a win by a similar margin against Taiwan in the semis and the two teams will contest the final Sunday. Korea did not field their best against the Malaysians and opted to rest their top singles player Lee Hyun Il and breaking up their doubles combinations as well.

The Koreans opted to field Shon Seung Mo in the first singles while Yoo Yong Sung who normally partners Lee Dong Soo to forge a lethal partnership instead partnered Ha Tae Kwon as the second doubles pair while Yim Bang Eun-Kim Yong Hyun forged the first doubles pairing. Wong Choong Hann had no problems defeating Seung Mo the opening singles with a 15-10, 15-1 margin.

The Malaysian doubles pair of Choong Tan Fook-Lee Wan Wan romped to an easy 15-0 win in their first game against Bang Eun-Yong Hyun but struggled to win the second 15-12 to give Malaysia a 2-0 lead. Mohd Roslin Hashim, Malaysia’s second singles player surprisingly lost the firs game 8-15 to Korean Park Tae Sang but bounced back to win the next two 15-7, 15-7.

In the other semi-final China had no problems taming the Japanese winning the tie under two hours. They too opted to rest world number one Chen Hong but Lin Dan who played in the first singles had no problems defeating Shoji Sato 15-8, 15-8. Cai Yun-Fu Haifeng defeated Keita Masuda-Tadashi Ohtsuka 15-8, 15-7 to give China a 2-0 lead. Bao Chunlai completed China’s win when he defeated Hidetaka Yamada 15-5, 15-6. In the Uber Cup final South Korea went 1-0 up when Jun Jae Youn defeated Cheng Shao Chieh 11-13, 11-2, 11-3. But Taiwan came back into the picture through the efforts of Huang Chia Chi who got the better of Seo Yoon Hee winning 11-1, 7-11, 11-2.

Korea meanwhile were undaunted and wins by third singles player Hwang Yu Mi over Huang Chia Hsin 8-11, 11-6, 11-2 as well as doubles Ra Kyung Kin-Lee Kyung Won who defeated Chien Yu Chin-Cheng Wen Hsiang 15-4, 15-9 giving them the title. —AFP

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