“LI-NING Hong Kong Open Badminton Championships 2025 part of the HSBC BWF World Tour Super 500” reached the closing stage with the semi-finals taking place at the Hong Kong Coliseum on Saturday.
Kicking off the curtain was the clash between defending champion Han Yue of China and ‘Dark Horse’ Lin Hsiang-Ti of Chinese Taipei in the Women’s Singles. Second seed Han eventually prevailed after three tough games as the Mainlander came from behind to reach Sunday’s final following a 14-21, 21-19, 21-19 victory. She will now meet another Mainlander Wang Zhi Yi for the title after the world number two and top seed beat Hong Kong born Canadian player Michelle Li in another match in straight games 21-16, 22-20.
With a ranking fifth in the world, Han reached the semi-finals without dropping a game but it was a different story against Lin. The unseeded Chinese Taipei shuttler took out two seeded players on her way to the semis, including talented youngster Tomoka Miyazakid of Japan, the fourth seed and one of the most promising players on the circuit.
And Lin continued her momentum in the penultimate encounter, taking the first game over Han with a comfortable 21-14 win. She moved a step closer to the final when Lin led 11-5 in the half-way mark of the second until Han came from behind to regain the lead 16-14. The Mainlander then upped the tempo in the closing stages as she levelled the overall score to 1-all after winning a close 21-19 game.
The third game was still closely contested as it could go either way when the score locked at 17-all. But then Han was able to dig deep from the crucial stages and sealed victory with another 21-19 win, reaching her fourth final of the season.
Han said she was the underdog throughout the match and was once considered she might have lost the match. “After losing the first game, I was still struggling in the second and I thought I would be stopped in the semi-finals,” she said after the match. “But then I told myself why not I gave a last-ditch effort to try which might change the course. Fortunately, it worked. It was a great thing for me to reach a back-to-back Hong Kong Open final.”
Despite the hectic schedule of the world tour, Han still has to squeeze time to represent her province Fujian in the forthcoming China National Games in November which she will have minimal preparation time. “I will probably return to my province in late October as the world tour is still in progress and it means I can only have a week or 10 days to prepare for the Games. As a result, I will have to do more on the mental side on my build-up to the Games.”
In another semi-finals clash, world number two Wang Zhi Yi faced Michelle Li, a Hong Kong born Canadian player. The two met three times before the encounter with Wang leading a slightly advantage by winning two of them. The Mainlander was quick to get into the match, building a 5-0 lead in the first game whereas Li made many errors in receiving as the game ended with a 21-16 win for Wang.
After losing the first game, Li started to regain her form and once led 12-10 in the second. But the classy Wang was able to hang in there, gradually clawed back to the game and was the first to reach the match point by leading 20-18. Li was not discouraged and forced the game into deuce by levelling it at 20-20 before Wang took two points in a row to seal victory.
Said Wang after the match, “Li is a very skillful player and I was prepared to be very passive against her. During the match, I had to adapt to her playing style before trying different ways to stop her so that I can win.”
Previewing the all-China final on Sunday, Wang said they knew each other well and she had to prepare it both physically and mentally. “I will have to take a good rest tonight for my body to recover. After playing for almost the whole week, I think both players will be a bit tire but since we know each other well, I have to be well prepared both physically and mentally.”
Li had former Hong Kong, China team member Yip Pui-yin as her coach for the clash as they have been friends for a long time. “We know each other for many years and I must thank her for helping me as the visiting coach in Hong Kong.”
The 33-year-old, who moved to Canada from Hong Kong during her younger days, said she never thought she could play so long on the tour but still has no plan of quitting. “I want to continue my career. I have already had three surgeries over these years, including a knee operation in 2023 as I wanted to start in the Paris Olympics the following year. I hope I can still be here, gradually recovering from the surgery and playing on the tour year after year.”
In the Men’s Doubles, the fairy tale of unseeded Chinese Taipei twins, Lee Fang-Chih and Lee Fang-Jen came to an abrupt end after they went down to Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang of China as the Paris Olympics silver medallists and sixth seeds prevailed in two games 21-19, 21-8. The Mainlanders will now face an India pair of Satwikairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, the eighth seeds in the final. The pair thrashed another Chinese Taipei combination Chen Cheng-Kuan and Lin Bing-Wei 21-17, 21-15.
In the Women’s Doubles, defending champions Pearly Tan and Muralitharan Thinaah of Malaysia were eliminated after a straight game defeat by Jia Yi Fan and Zhang Shu Xian of China as the third seeds won 21-14, 21-11.
