Beijing: After being away from China for half a year, the Chinese national badminton team which has been training in Chiang Mai, Thailand has finally returned home after the Japan Open ended on September 4th, 2022.
While preparing for the Denmark Open scheduled to take place in Odense, from October 18 to October 23, the Chinese Badminton Association (CBA) has decided to temporarily split up the Tokyo Olympic mixed doubles gold medalists Wang Yi Lyu/Huang Dong Ping.
Huang will partner with Feng Yanzhe, a young player who was born in 2000 for the Denmark Open while Wang YiLyu will not participate in the tournament.
After winning the Olympic gold, Wang/Huang’s performance has not been consistent.
In 2022, they managed to enter four finals (All England, Korea Masters, Badminton Asia Championships, Singapore Open) but were only able to win the Korea Masters by beating Huang Yaqiong/Ou Xuan Yi 21-17, 21-17 in the final.
One of the reasons for the decline of Wang Yilyu/Huang Dongping’s performance was injuries. When commentating during the 2022 World Championships TV broadcast, China’s former Olympic champion Gao Ling revealed that Huang Dongping has an elbow injury while Wang Yilu has a back injury, but they kept playing despite those injuries.
Another reason for their decline in performance was because they have lost their hunger for victory and self-confidence.
This was not the first time CBA broke up a top mixed doubles pair. Earlier this year, it split up the World No. 1 mixed doubles pair Zheng Siwei/Huang Yaqiong. As a result, when Zheng/Huang were re-united, they went on to win 38 consecutive matches and regained the 2022 World Championships title.
Perhaps CBA was hoping the temporary split would rejuvenate both Wang and Huang so that they’ll re-discover the new energy and excitement when they get to play together again.
