Despite a comparatively dismal year, China continued its dominance at World Super Series Finals as even in 2017 Dubai World Super Series Finals only China has semifinalists in all events leading others with 6 berths, followed by 4 from Japan as players from 9 countries entered the semifinals. With winning being the only option, third day saw some intense long three set matches and in the end as PV Sindhu entered her second consecutive semifinals at Dubai, there were plenty of surprises with 2nd and 3rd seeds in Women’s Singles being knocked out, 2nd seed Srikanth failing to win any match and some other top seeds tumbling out. This is the third instance of an Indian winning all group matches and 9th semifinals for an Indian. Check the summary of all events.
20 semifinalists:
6 from China, 4 from Japan, 3 from Denmark, 2 from Indonesia, one each from India, Thailand, Korea, Malaysia and Hong Kong
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WS: India, China, Thailand, Japan
MS: Malaysia, Korea, Denmark, China
MD: China, Denmark, Japan, Indonesia
WD: Japan, Japan, Denmark, China
XD: China, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia
Women’s Singles Semifinals: Sindhu vs Yufei, Intanon vs Yamaguchi
Bingjiao from China 3rd seed Ji Hyun Sung (Korea) finished at the bottom of Group A and Group B, respectively losing all three matches.
Group A
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PV Sindhu remained the only unbeaten Women’s Singles player as she overcame top seed Yamaguchi in a match where scoreline of 21-9 21-13 may make one wonder if being already through to semifinals was the top seed Japanese saving energy for knockout!! This was Sindhu’s second consecutive win over Yamaguchi at Super Series Finals after 2016 group match.
Group B
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With the top two seeds knocked out as defending champion and 2nd seed Tzu Ying Tai finished third despite winning 2 of the 3 matches, same as topper Ratchanok Intanon and Yufei Chen (China). 8th seed Yufei Chen played a marathon match of 1 hour 14 minutes to get past Intanon in three sets in a must win match for her.
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Group A had no such twists as the top two seeds easily reached the semifinals. 4th seed Sindhu remained the only unbeaten player from both groups, while top seed Yamaguchi lost and will play Intanon now in semifinals tomorrow as Sindhu wil play Yufei.
Men’s Singles
Semifinals:
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Lee Chong Wei vs Viktor Axelsen
Shi Yuqi vs Son Wan Ho
Group B
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2nd seed Srikanth Kidambi signed off his third World Super Series Finals winning just one set as he lost all three matches. From his Group B, 3rd seed Yuqi (China) and defending champion Viktor Axelsen (Denmark) reached the final. Yuqi won all three while Viktor won 2, today defeating Tien Chen, who finished third with a win and two loss.
Group A
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saw top seed Son Wan Ho playing a must win match defeated Lee Chong Wee in a marathon match of 1 hour 15 minutes to enter semifinals behind Lee Chong Wei as NG Ka Long Angus finished 3rd.
Men’s Doubles
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With semifinalists already decided, today Group B saw 4th seed Cheng / Nan (China) finish on top with all three wins while 2nd seeds Mathias/Mogensen finished second. 8th seed Japanese pair of Takuro / Yugo failed to win any match.
From the triangular race to semifinals, Group A saw 5th seed Japanese pair of Takeshi / Keigo finishing on top with 3 straight wins while top seeds Indonesian pair of Marcus / Kevin finished 2nd. 3rd seeds Chinese pair of Junhui / Yuchen lost all three matches.
Women’s Doubles
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While Group B had already decided the two semifinalists in 2nd seed Yuki/Sayaka (Japan) and 5th seed Kamilla/Christinna (Denmark), today the Japanese pair won to finish on top, while Chinese Taipei pair of Ching/Jing had to return without winning a match.
Group A was the only group in all 5 events where all four teams were in contention of a spot in semifinals winning one match each till yesterday. Finally, it was the top seeds Japanese pair of Shiho Tanaka / Koharu Yonemoto and 9th seed chinese pair of Huang / Yu who won today and entered the semifinals, leaving behing the 4th seed chinese pair and 6th seed Korean pair.
Mixed Doubles
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Chinese pairs topped both the group as after Mixed Doubles being the only event where all four semifinalists were already decided yesterday, today the semifinal line up was decided. 9th seeds Japanese pair of Kenta / Ayane and 8th seed Korean pair of Tan / Lei in Group B returned with all three losses.
Group B topper Yilyu Wang / Dongping (China) vs Tang/Tse (Hong Kong)
Group A topper Chun / Ying (China) vs Tontowi Ahmad / Liliyana Natsir (Indonesia)
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