Saarbrucken: Taiwan’s World No. 4 Chou Tien Chen eased into the Hylo Open final on Saturday with a straight-forward 21-17, 21-11 win over World No. 24 Toma Junior Popov of France in the semi-finals.
Chou will battle Indonesia’s World No. 6 Anthony Sinisuka Ginting on Sunday for a chance to bag his second title of the season (Chou beat Kodai Naraoka 14–21, 21–10, 21–6 to win the 2022 Taipei Open), and his fourth title of the competition. Chou won 2012, 2013, and 2014 editions of the competition when the tournament was still called Bitburger Open Grand Prix Gold. The Bitburger Open Grand Prix Gold was upgraded to the Super 500 category tournament and was renamed Hylo Open in 2021, before being downgraded to Super 300 in 2022.
Meanwhile, Ginting came back from 3-7, 10-13 before securing the first game 21-18 against Kidambi Srikanth of India.
Ginting continued his momentum in the second game to win 21-15.
Taiwan’s men’s doubles pairs also made strong progress at Hylo Open. The World No. 19 Lu Ching Yao/Yang Po Han who advanced to last week’s French Open final, made their second consecutive final in two weeks when they upset World No. 7 Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen of Denmark 21-14, 15-21, 21-14 to set up an all-Taiwanese final with World No. 43 Lee Jhe-Huei/Yang Po-Hsuan on Sunday.
In addition to men’s doubles, the women’s singles and women’s doubles finals saw players from the same country will face-off against their teammates for the Hylo Open title.
Zhang Yi Man and Han Yue of China will meet each other in the women’s singles final while Thailand pair – Jongkolphan Kititharakul/Rawinda Prajongjai will take on compatriots Benyapa Aimsaard/Nuntakarn Aimsaard for the women’s doubles crown.
In the mixed doubles final, Feng Yan Zhe/Huang Dong Ping of China will clash with Rehan Naufal Kusharjanto/Lisa Ayu Kusumawati of Indonesia on Sunday.
