China retained the Thomas Cup after a nearly four-and-half-hours battle against a resilient France in Horsens, Denmark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The French, playing in their maiden Thomas Cup Finals, bowed out 1-3 in the final. But it was a tie that could have easily gone their way, especially with the way their three singles players threatened their Chinese rivals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\u00a0Jiting-Ren Xiangyu secured the triumph with a 21-13, 21-16 doubles victory over Eloi Adam-Leo Rossi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The win was China\u2019s 13th<\/sup> in the series and made up for the Chinese women\u2019s 1-3 defeat to Korea in the Uber Cup Final earlier in the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n World No. 1 Shi kicked things off with a 21-16, 16-21, 21-17 nail-biter over No. 4 Christo Popov, putting the Chinese out in front. The Chinese world number one, had to dig deep to overcome Christo \u00a0in the 85-minute encounter. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christo had beaten Yuqi for the BWF World Series Finals title last December and was always a threat in the match but Yuqi managed to stave off the Frenchman this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second singles, saw Alex Lanier’s pick up a surprisingly easy 21-13, 21-10 win over world number seven Li Shifeng.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Toma Popov Junior then fell Weng Hongyang in another close-as-can-be contest, 22-20, 20-22, 21-19 after a 96-minute struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That win put China on the cusp, the team title sealed in the doubles. A fifth match-up – which was set to feature Christo and Toma in doubles – was therefore not needed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After winning just one Thomas Cup between 2014 and 2022, the Chinese men have now won two in a row, having beaten Indonesia in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n FINAL RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n China beat France 3-1 <\/strong>(Shi Yuqi bt Christo Popov 21-16, 16-21, 21-17: Li Shifeng lost to Alex Lanier 13-21, 10-21; Weng Hongyang bt TomaJunior Popov 22-20, 20-22, 21-19; He Jiting-Ren Xiangyu bt Eloi Adam-Loe Rossi 21-13, 21-16)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" China retained the Thomas Cup after a nearly four-and-half-hours battle against a resilient France in Horsens, Denmark. The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[75],"class_list":["post-12573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-badminton"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t