On January 16, 2025, the Indian Badminton Open continued to heat up! In a recently concluded men's singles round of 1/8 final, our national badminton team's only "seedling" Weng Hongyang did not disappoint everyone. He performed outstandingly and won two consecutive games with a score of 21-18 and 21-12, defeating Malaysia's player Liang Junhao in one fell swoop and successfully advancing! As a result, in the men's singles competition of this event, four seats in the top 8 have been determined. In other matches, Singapore's Luo Jianyou, who won the championship title at the World Championships, also performed brilliantly. He eliminated the 6th seed of the tournament, Japan's famous player Naraoka Gongda, ranked 7th in the world, with a score of 2-0. Also, Hong Kong's player Li Zhiyao is also very powerful. He successfully reversed France's player Popov with a score of 2-1 in the match. And Taipei's "big brother" Zhou Tiancheng also performed well, defeating our national badminton team's Lu Guangzu with a score of 2-1.
In the men's singles event of this tournament, a total of 4 players participated in the competition. Li Shifeng was reversed in the game, losing to Liang Junhao with a score of 1-2 and was unfortunately eliminated in the first round. Lei Lanxi also failed to pass the first round, losing to Xiaobo Popov with a score of 0-2. However, Lu Guangzu and Weng Hongyang's performance was still eye-catching. Lu Guangzu relied on his own strength to eliminate Danish player Gemu Ke with a score of 2-1 and obtained the qualification for promotion. And Weng Hongyang advanced to the top 16 due to the withdrawal of Indian player Srikanth. The two of them continued to advance in the event together. However, in a game that ended earlier on this match day, Lu Guangzu performed poorly and lost to Taipei's big brother Zhou Tiancheng with a score of 1-2. As a result, there was only one player left in the national badminton men's singles, Weng Hongyang, who was about to face Liang Junhao. Weng Hongyang is currently ranked 21st in the world. Looking back on last season, he won the championship in the men's singles event of the Super 1000 China Badminton Open, which is not to be underestimated. His playing style is quite aggressive, but there is still room for improvement in terms of stability. Liang Junhao's world ranking is 28th. Last season, his best achievement was winning the runner-up in the Super 500 event. These two players are both of the type with strong impact, and they have played against each other twice before, each winning one game, which can be described as evenly matched and evenly divided.
In the first set of this game, Liang Junhao quickly entered an excellent state at the beginning, taking a leading advantage of 4-1. Then, the scores of both sides fell into a stalemate. However, Weng Hongyang gradually found his rhythm and state, successfully leveled the score, and even led by one point with a score of 11-10 when entering the technical timeout. After the timeout ended and the game resumed, Weng Hongyang slowly controlled the rhythm of the game and expanded the score advantage to 18-13. But then Liang Junhao launched a counterattack, relying on the clever control of the net small ball, making a small climax of 5-1, making the score 18-19. At this critical moment, Weng Hongyang showed strong pressure resistance ability, scoring two points in a row, finally winning the first set with a score of 21-18. Entering the second set, Liang Junhao took the lead with a score of 2-0 at the beginning. However, Weng Hongyang successfully controlled the rhythm of the game, making an extremely eye-catching wave of 6-0, achieving a reversal of the score in one fell swoop. Finally, Weng Hongyang led 11-4 into the technical timeout stage. After the timeout and the game resumed again, Weng Hongyang still firmly controlled the rhythm of the game, continuing to maintain a leading advantage of 14-7. However, after that, Weng Hongyang made more mistakes, and Liang Junhao seized this opportunity to launch a fierce counterattack, even once chasing the score to 12-15. Fortunately, Weng Hongyang withstood the pressure, widened the gap again, the score came to 19-12, and finally won another set with a score of 21-12. As a result, Weng Hongyang eliminated Liang Junhao with a total score of 2-0 and successfully advanced to the top 8.
In other matches, Hong Kong's player Li Zhiyao competed fiercely with French player Big Popov. Li Zhiyao ranks 20th in the world badminton rankings, and in the previous Super 1000 Malaysia Open this season, he had a brilliant performance, successfully defeating the powerful Anselong in the first round and advancing smoothly. Li Zhiyao's offensive strength is quite outstanding, and the impact shown on the court is also very strong, fully capable of upsetting top players. Looking at Big Popov, his world ranking is 18th. In the European Championships last season, he went all the way through the customs, first defeating Anselong, then successfully advancing to the finals, and finally won the runner-up, showing that his strength is not to be underestimated. Looking back at the previous records between Li Zhiyao and Big Popov, they have played a total of three times, and in these three games, Li Zhiyao has a certain advantage with a record of 2 wins and 1 loss. In this game, the situation was not optimistic for Li Zhiyao at first. He lost the first set with a score of 14-21. However, Li Zhiyao did not lose heart because of this, but instead fought back bravely, relying on his excellent performance, scoring 21-18 and 22-20 to win two sets in a row, thus narrowly reversing and successfully defeating Big Popov, advancing to the top 8. Next, in the quarter-finals, Li Zhiyao will face Taipei's top player Zhou Tiancheng. Zhou Tiancheng previously experienced a tough battle. In the match against our national badminton team's Lu Guangzu, the two sides fought for three rounds. Finally, Zhou Tiancheng eliminated Lu Guangzu with a score of 21-15, 13-21, and 21-14, thereby obtaining the qualification to advance.
In this conference, there was a highly anticipated match between the 6th seed of the conference, Japan's famous player Naraoka Gongda, and Singapore's number one player Luo Jianyou. Naraoka Gongda ranks 7th in the world. Looking back on last season, his overall performance was quite good. He successfully advanced to the finals of the Super 1000 event and the Super 500 event, and he has excellent defensive ability, which is a typical representative of defensive players. Looking at Luo Jianyou, his world ranking is 13th, and he has no small glory on his body, having won the championship title at the 2021 World Championships. However, his performance last season seemed relatively average, and compared with Naraoka Gongda, it is indeed slightly inferior. These two players have played against each other five times before, and surprisingly, Luo Jianyou maintained a perfect record in these five games. In this key game, Luo Jianyou performed even better, performing exceptionally well and in excellent form, eliminating Naraoka Gongda in two straight sets with a score of 21-17 and 21-15, thus advancing successfully. Moreover, through this victory, Luo Jianyou also achieved six consecutive victories over Naraoka Gongda, which is really amazing.