All England Open badminton: Angus Ng retires injured in rematch with Li Shifeng – but has a wedding to prepare for
- Ng faces Li again at All England Open Badminton Championships, but their first-round clash lasts just 26 minutes
- The Hongkonger had beaten Li only three days earlier to win the German Open final
Newly crowned German Open champion Angus Ng Ka-long came straight down to earth as he retired hurt in his opening All England Open Badminton Championships match against the same opponent – but at least he could fly home early before getting married.
Having beaten Li Shifeng of China on Sunday in the German final, Ng had been drawn to face him again just three days later in the All England first round in Birmingham.
But the sequel was over in just 26 minutes, as Ng lost the first set 21-12 and trailed 8-1 in the second before retiring.
He said afterwards that he was carrying an Achilles tendon strain picked up during the marathon German final.
“It did not get serious – it just needs some time to recover, and three days is obviously not enough for me,” Ng said before flying back to Hong Kong to prepare for his wedding next weekend.
The world No 11 made a promising start to this year, finishing third at the Indonesia Masters in January, losing the final at the Thailand Masters in February, and being crowned champion at the German Open to end his three-year title drought.
“The fact that I had won several good games in a row has made me believe in myself and I don’t need to doubt myself any more,” Ng said.
“The ranking points I earned in the last few matches put me in a better position to compete for an Olympic spot.”
Hong Kong No 2 Lee Cheuk-yiu also bowed out in the first round of the All England, losing to world No 1 Viktor Axelsen, the defending champion from Denmark. Lee won the first set 21-19, but ran out of gas in the next two, losing them 21-15 and 21-11.
There were more promising signs for Hong Kong in the doubles. Women’s pair Lianne Yeung Nga-ting and Yeung Pui-lam as well as mixed doubles duo Reginald Lee Chun-hei and Yoyo Ng Tsz-yau won their first-round matches on their debut appearances.
Yeung and Yeung upset Jeong Na-eun and Kim Hye-jeong, the world No 4 pair from South Korea, 12-21, 21-19, 21-14.
“We are overjoyed to have won our first All England match – by far our most memorable result,” Lianne Yeung said. “I think mindset helped us win. Their ranking is much higher than ours, so we had nothing to lose.”
After nearly two years training behind closed doors at the Hong Kong Sports Institute during the pandemic, rather than competing as players from elsewhere did, they lost all of their ranking points. They had to start from scratch by competing in the lowest-ranked tournaments, and are now ranked 32nd in the world.
In the second round, they will face Li Wenmei and Liu Xuanxuan of China, who knocked out Hong Kong’s Yoyo Ng and Tsang Hiu-yan.
Ng had more joy alongside Lee in the mixed doubles, seeing off Hiroki Midorikawa and Natsu Saito of Japan 22-20, 18-21, 26-24. Tang Chun-man and Tse Ying-suet, ranked 20th, lost to Japan’s Yuta Watanabe and Arisa Higashino, the world No 2 duo, 17-21, 17-21.
