Koreans Break Lean Spell
Former world champions Ko Sung Hyun and Shin Baekcheol made their first semifinal in over two years beating familiar rivals Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan at the YONEX French Open 2021 today.
· DEV SUKUMAR
Ko and Shin, who hadn’t won a match in their last six HSBC BWF World Tour events, followed up their wins over Manu Attri/Sumeeth Reddy and Akira Koga/Taichi Saito by beating reigning world champions Ahsan/Setiawan in three games.
The ‘Daddies’ will rue the numerous errors they committed after holding a strong position in the second game. The errors gave Ko and Shin a foothold, and after edging through in the second, it all went their way in the decider.
“We lost in the first round of several tournaments and we haven’t competed in over six month. We trained a lot, and came here nervous, so this win helped,” said Shin.