Tokyo: Rio Olympic champion Carolina Marin of Spain bagged the women’s singles title at the $325,000 Japan Open Superseries badminton championships that was held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium on Sunday.
Two-time world champion Marin ended her 22-month Superseries title drought by overcoming He Bingjiao of China 23-21, 21-12 in 53 minutes.
The No. 1 seeds and Rio Olympic champions Ayaka Takahashi/Misaki Matsutomo had the crowd behind them, roaring them on to finish off South Korea’s Kim Ha-Na and Kong Hee-Yong 21-18, 21-16 in the women’s doubles final. This was also Takahashi/Matsutomo’s second Japan Open title, the pair had won the tournament in 2014.
Meanwhile, Chinese mixed doubles pair of Wang Yilv and Huang Dongping needed only 33 minutes to battle past Japanese qualifiers Takuro Hoki and Sayaka Hirota 21-13, 21-8 in the final.
