Chong Wei is hot favourite in Superseries Final

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KUALA LUMPUR: Five shuttlers including the men’s world number one Datuk Lee Chong Wei will be seeking record fourth BWF World Superseries Finals crowns in the season-ending event beginning today.

The Malaysian ace is on home soil and hot favourite to reclaim the title he last won in 2010.

The Danish men’s team of Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen and China’s dominant women’s pairing of Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang will also be gunning for their fourth doubles crowns in the event.

Chong Wei, who won the World Superseries Finals three times in a row from 2008-2010, also will be looking to add to a record 34 crowns in all Superseries events.

He appears to have a clear path as nemesis Lin Dan will not play in the tournament at the Cheras Badminton Stadium in Kuala Lumpur.

Lin, the reigning world champion, and his compatriot Chen Long – the current titleholder – both failed to qualify for the US$500,000 championship.

The finals bring together the top eight performers in each category based on points earned from the 12 Superseries tournaments.

The premier event will see video line-call review being trialled in a bid to stamp out faulty decisions which have caused rows in the past.

Despite a heartbreaking loss to Lin in the Worlds in August when Chong Wei had to concede in the final due to cramps, the Malaysian has been a force this year, winning six of the 12 Superseries titles so far.

Possible threats include Japan’s Kenichi Tago, one of the few players to have beaten Chong Wei this year. Tago pulled an upset in the French Open semi-finals in October.

In the men’s doubles, the Boe-Mogensen pairing will be hard-pressed to earn their fourth consecutive title in the Malaysian event due to a dip in form this year.

The favourites are world champions Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia, who have stormed to the top of the world rankings on the back of their wins at the world championships and four Superseries events this year.

Wang and Yu have dominated women’s doubles since 2010.

But Chinese teammates Ma Jin and Tang Jinhua and Denmark’s Christinna Pedersen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl will mount a challenge.

The women’s singles will feature China’s Olympic champion Li Xuerui, along with Wang Shixian.

In their way is Taiwan’s 19-year-old Tai Tzu Ying, who won the Malaysia Open in January.

The top contenders in a tough-to-call mixed doubles competitions will be China’s reigning Olympic champs Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei, and world champions Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir of Indonesia.

Zhang and Zhao have won six Superseries events this year, while Tontowi and Liliyana took four including the coveted All-England Open. — AFP