China ends Games badminton women's team title drought with sweep of Japan

NAGOYA, Japan, Sept 24 (Xinhua) -- China reclaimed the Asian Games badminton women's team title with a 3-0 sweep of Japan here on Thursday, ending a gold-medal drought that spanned the last two editions of the Games.

Wang Zhiyi got China off to a strong start, rallying past Akane Yamaguchi 14-21, 21-19, 21-17. Liu Shengshu and Tan Ning then held their nerves in a tight doubles battle to edge Yuki Fukushima and Mayu Matsumoto 21-16, 25-23. Chen Yufei closed out the tie, cruising past Tomoka Miyazaki 21-10, 21-11.

Wang fell behind 3-12 early against Yamaguchi before dropping the first game 14-21. She fought back to edge the second 21-19, and saved four match points in the decider to close it out 21-17.

"Winning a match that tough was an incredible experience for me, and it's built up my confidence," Wang said after the match, adding, "I was nervous at the start, but I adjusted and found my rhythm point by point."

Liu and Tan extended China's lead to 2-0, with the second game alone seeing the two pairs deadlocked from 18-18 through 23-23, and the Chinese duo missing several match points on net errors and a failed challenge before finally converting on their next two chances.

"When we hit adversity or ran into problems in that match, we dared to solve them, and that's an experience we'll treasure," Tan said. "We believed we could win, and we wanted this team gold badly."

While answering how the pair lifts each other under pressure, she added that "We don't need to say or do anything special - we know each other too well for that."

Tokyo Olympic champion Chen then needed just 43 minutes to see off Miyazaki, sending her teammates sprinting onto the court to celebrate the title, which is China's first in the event since Incheon 2014.