Japan dethroned China at the Badminton Asia Team Championships right in front of a partisan home crowd at the Qingdao Conson Gymnasium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the Japanese did in grand style, defeating China 3-0 to win first ever men\u2019s team title. It also turned out to be a day to forget for the Chinese as they were also beaten 3-0 by Korea in the women\u2019s final earlier in the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Japan last made the men\u2019s team final in the inaugural tournament in 2016 but had lost to Indonesia. This time they were not to be denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yushi Tanaka, who is coached by former Japanese stars Kento Momota and Sho Sasaki, gave Japan their opening point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He defeated Hu Zhean 21-10, 21-18 in 48-minutes to avenge his loss to the Chinese player just over a year ago at the same venue. Playing in the Badminton Asia Mixed Team semi-final last year, it was He Zhean, who won to lead China to take the tie 3-2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first doubles was a much closer affair before Kakeru Kumagai-Hiroki Nishi took just over an hour to gun down He Jiting-Ren Xiangyu 21-17, 14-21, 21-15. The Chinese pair are only ranked 154 in the world compared to the Japanese duo, ranked 31. But the ranking belied the determined performance from Jiting-Xiangyu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Down 0-2, the pressure was all on the Chinese squad and all of it fell on the shoulders of Zhu Xuanchen. He was up against the more experienced Koki Watanabe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was the first meeting between the duo but it had all the thrills befitting a deciding match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Watanabe led 13-7 in the first game only to see Xuanchen clawing his way back to tie the game at 13-13. It was close all the way before the Chinese youngster took the game 24-22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Watanabe held a slim lead thoroughout the second game to take it 24-17 to force the decider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite a strong challenge from Xuanchen, especially in the closing stages, Watanabe took the math 22-24, 21-17, 21-18 after a 87-minute battle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And with that Japan are the Asian men\u2019s team champions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FINAL RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Japan bt China 3-0 <\/strong>(Yushi Tanaka bt Hu Zhean 21-10, 21-18; Kakeru Kumagai-Hiroki Nishi bt He Jiting-Ren Xiangyu 21-17, 14-21, 21-15; Koki Watanabe bt Zhu Xuanchen 22-24, 21-17, 21-18<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Japan dethroned China at the Badminton Asia Team Championships right in front of a partisan home crowd at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9209,"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-9208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-badminton"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Koki-Watanabe.jpg",1094,615,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Koki-Watanabe-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Koki-Watanabe-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Koki-Watanabe-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Koki-Watanabe-1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Koki-Watanabe.jpg",1094,615,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Koki-Watanabe.jpg",1094,615,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Koki-Watanabe-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Koki-Watanabe-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Koki-Watanabe.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9210,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9208\/revisions\/9210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}