Semi-finals day at the 2013 Polish International proved too hot to handle for Europe’s circuit players as the youthful but talented travelling Chinese Taipei team steamrolled their way to all five finals. Such was the dominance of the Asian visitors that the line-up for Sunday’s finals makes grim reading from a European perspective.

You would be forgiven for taking a second glance at the finals schedule and thinking that something was amiss but the stark facts speak for themselves, four of the five finals will be direct Chinese Taipei head to head shoot outs with the lone Indonesian pair of Rusdianto & Wardhana making up the numbers in the men’s doubles.

Ya Ching Hsu not once, not twice but three times finalist

The achievement of the Chinese Taipei teams has to be admired and as a team they can be proud of their weeks work in Poland. In most successful team units there is always a stand out individual and this week the achievement of the softly spoken Ya Ching Hsu reaching three finals is unique in badminton terms. Hsu will line up in the women’s singles as top seed and will go for a hat trick of titles in mixed and women’s doubles.

Some Positives for Europe but fancied Poles struggle

The emergence of English youngsters Jenny Moore & Victoria Williams (pictured) was the only real positive from a European perspective on semi-finals day. The English girls acquitted themselves admirably in their women’s doubles semi-final and gave themselves a real fighting chance of making the finals.

The English took the opening game but once their Chinese Taipei opponents found their rhythm in the second game the writing was on the wall for the young English girls. However both Williams and Moore gave everything they had and displayed immense maturity going down in a closely contested final game to only narrowly miss out on their first senior final.

Polish involvement also ended at semi-final stage as fancied top seeds Wacha & Cwalina were overpowered by Taipei young guns Chen & Wang. Lukasz Moren & Agnieszka Wojtkowska also came unstuck in their mixed semi-final which in hindsight set the tone for the day from a European perspective.

For all results from Poland Click HERE

To watch the finals live from 10am on Badminton Europe’s YouTube channel click HERE

For photo gallery from the Polish International follow Badminton Europe on Facebook by clicking HERE

Article & Image by Mark Phelan (Live in Lubin)

_________

Follow Badminton Europe on Twitter
Join Badminton Europe on facebook
Subscribe to Badminton Europe's YouTube Channel