China’s 20-year-old Chen Yufei scored her first win over over three-times and defending world champion and reigning Olympics champion Carolina Marin to reach the USD700,000 Fuzhou China Open final.
 
The rising cool and calm Chinese star never allowed her first game loss to pull off an 11-21, 21-15, 21-13 victory in a 66-minute battle much to the delight of the home fans.
 
The fourth-ranked Yuefi earned the accolades from the Chinese fans who had turned up at the Haixia Olympic Sports Center in Fuzhou in the manner in which Yufei, a former world junior champion, silenced the Spaniard’s shriek’s which disappeared a the match wore on from the second game onwards.
 
In Sunday’s final Yufei will face Japan’s former world champion Nozomi Okuhara for the title. Okuhara prevented an all-China final when she shut another home hopeful He Bingjiao in straight games 21-13, 21-13 in 38 minutes. Bingjiao won the China Open in 2015.
 
Meanwhile, in an epic 97-minute battle Japan’s world champion Kento Momota fought tooth and nail to oust China’s Olympic champion, Chen Long with a come-from-behind 19-21, 21-17, 21-17 win.
 
It was Momota’s second win over Chen Long on Chinese soil this year, having beaten the Chinese in the final of this year’s Badminton Asia Championships in Wuhan in April. Chen Long, however, still leads 5-3 in the head-to-head count.
 
Momota will play world No 3 Chou Tien-chen of Chinese Taipei in Sunday’s final. Tien-chen smashed China’s world No 2 and All-England champion Shi Yuqi 21-11, 21-10 in a 35-minute match. – BY RIZAL ABDULLAH
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