Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying Wins All England Championship

In one of the few sporting events allowed to continue in the UK this past weekend, Sunday, March 15th, saw Tai Tzu-ying of Taiwan defeat Chen Yufei of China in straight games 21-19, and 21-15 at the final of the All England Badminton Championships.

In downing the world number one, Tai avenged her 2019, defeat in the same tournament against the same foe, to add to two previous titles at the world’s oldest badminton event, in 2017, and 2018 respectively.

Talking to local media after her win, Tai said “I’m very excited to have won the Yonex All England. “I’m very familiar with playing against Chen as I’ve played against her so many times. I put her under pressure today, and I’m very happy that I was able to control the rallies well. I really like to play this tournament.”

Tai has been a long time member of the women’s circuit, most notably coming to the public’s attention in Taiwan during the 2017 Summer Universiade in Taipei when she beat Lee Jang-mi of South Korea for the gold medal.

The five day event at Arena Birmingham, however, was not as positive an experience for the Taiwanese men’s team with top seed Chou Tien-chen losing, also in straight games, to Victor Axelsen of Denmark; the Dane winning his first All England title.

Speaking after his defeat, Chou put on a brave face but admitted “(I) tried to put in a better performance but I wasn’t able to control the rallies as well as Viktor was able to.”