With successive victories in the Women’s Singles, Men’s Doubles, Women’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles on the final day, the clash between Li, the 2022 Asian Games champion and world number 20 Sen would decide if China could sweep all five titles of the 2025 Hong Kong Open. Sen led a small advantage of their head-to-head with a 7-6 record but Li came back from behind to beat the Indian 2-1 at the China Open in July.
Sen kicked off the clash with a quick start when he led 5-1 but his effort was soon cancelled out by the Mainlander when Li hit a 7-3 score to level it at 8-all before gaining a 11-10 lead when reaching the half-way mark. The second half was Li’s show as the Chinese shuttler claimed the game 21-15. The second game started in a similar way as Sen quickly built a 4-0 advantage in the opening stages, but the advantage was short-lived when Li soon regained the lead 11-7 and sealed victory when he won by a big margin game 21-12.
The fifth title of the day for Team China repeated what they did in 2012, with Li also breaking a 13-year title drought in the Men’s Singles after Chen Long last won it for China.
Li said he was not in his best form in Hong Kong as he lacked systemic training. But after experiencing a dismayed first round exit in last month’s World Championships in Paris, he tried to raise his form through competitions and hoped to strike more ranking points so that he could reach the World Tour Finals in December.
The champion did not forget to pay tribute to the fans, saying he was really moved when he heard the fans cheering for him. “I have gained a lot of confidence in Hong Kong and hopefully I can continue to do well in the next Super 750 tournament in Shenzhen.”
It was the third Women’s Doubles title for third seeds Jia Yi Fan in Hong Kong as she joined hands with Zhang Shu Xian to beat fourth seeds Rin Iwanaga and Kie Nakanishi of Japan 21-17, 21-15. Jia previously won the title in 2017 and 2019 when her partner was Chen Qing Chen and the new partnership with Zhang also worked well. “We will take it step by step. We have won the Swiss Open early this year, a Super 300 event and now the Super 500 Hong Kong event. Our next target will be a Super 750 event,” Jia said.
With a new partner Zhang, Jia said she had already forgotten how she felt when she won the Hong Kong Open with older partner Chen as it’s a new beginning for the pair. The pair will also start in the China Masters in Shenzhen but Jai will then reunite with Chen for the Korea Open and next month’s Denmark Open as the decision was made by the team management.
Jia and Chen captured a gold medal for China at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
In the Mixed Doubles, world number two pair of Feng Yan Zhe/Huang Dong Ping made amends of last year when they lost in the final. This time, they had little difficulty of trouncing compatriots Guo Xin Wa and Chen Fang Hui in two identical games 21-14. Not only winning their first trophy in Hong Kong, the pair will also move to the world number one position after the victory. “This is our first title after a disappointing World Championships in Paris and it can prove we have made improvement. We will keep focusing on our own game, make improvement and play every match with our best effort.”
The pair was the number one seeds in the Worlds, but was eliminated in the second round by an unseeded pair from Denmark.
