By Richa Naidu
PARIS (Reuters) -Reigning champions Wang Chi-Lin and Lee Yang of Taiwan, who are in the men’s doubles ‘Group of Death’ along with top pairs from India, Japan, China and South Korea, enjoyed a straightforward victory at the Paris Games on Tuesday.
The Taiwanese, who are childhood friends, beat Vinson Chiu and Joshua Yuan of the United States 21-12 21-13 in Group D.
“After Tokyo (Olympics), we’ve not played very good, so we just need to focus on every match,” Wang said.
“We just want to play well. And for us in the Olympics we have that feeling. So we’ll just focus more and more, pay attention on the every match.”
Wang and Lee, who bagged gold in Tokyo, are part of a group including Japan’s former world champions Hoki Takuro and Kobayashi Yugo, Olympic silver medallist Liu Yuchen of China, and ex-European Games champions Kim Astrup and Anders Rasmussen from Denmark – dubbed as the men’s doubles ‘Group of Death.’
Wang laughed when asked how he feels being in that group.
“It’s good experience,” he said. “We’ll just have to enjoy it and find a way to win every match.”
China’s Liu and partner Ou Xuanyi battled it out with Japan’s Kobayashi and Hoki later on Tuesday, with the Chinese pair winning 22-20 21-18 in a near hour-long battle in which 19 shuttlecocks were used and whose longest rally was 30 strokes.
One court over, South Korea’s Kang Min-hyuk and Seo Seung-jae, ranked fourth in men’s doubles, smashed their way to a 21-16 21-15 victory over Thailand’s Supak Jomkoh and Kittinupong Kendren, the world number 23 pairing.
Number five men’s duo Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy – widely considered India’s best chance of a badminton gold – won 21-13 21-13 against seventh-ranked Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Ardianto of Indonesia in 40 minutes.
“Obviously we wanted to get this win in,” Shetty said. “It really boosts our confidence, that we could win against Fajar and Muhammad – they are a top pair and we’ve always really had some fun, tough battles against them.”
In women’s doubles, world number four Matsuyama Nami and Shida Chiharu of Japan were upset 24-22 26-24 by South Korea’s Kim So-yeong and Kong Hee-yong, who rank 10th.
Later on Tuesday, world number nine women’s singles shuttler He Bingjiao of China plays Britain’s Kirsty Gilmour.
(Reporting by Richa Naidu; Editing by Ken Ferris)
