by Simon Daish

Third seeds Miyu Kato and Misaki Morizono of Japan headed into the final as the slightly more favoured pairing to succeed, having only dropped one game from their previous two matches in the competition.

Yet, Chinese Taipei’s Lin Chia-Hsuan and Lin Po-Hsuan, who were seeded sixth for the event, were expected to provided a tough challenge in the final following their elimination of the top seeded partnership Hitomi Sato and Honoka Hashimoto in the quarter-finals.

Both the Japanese and Chinese Taipei pairings got off to a positive start as both teams demonstrated a high level of attacking play, but it was Kato and Morizono who took the opening game by a three point margin.

Kato and Morizono then doubled their lead in tie with a commanding win in game two, racing into a 2-0 lead in the final.

The Japanese duo looked on their way to claiming a third successive end after the partnership of Miyu Kato and Misaki Morizono moved ahead in game three, but Lin Chia-Hsuan and Lin Po-Hsuan responded well to a ‘TimeOut’ call and recovered to claim the game in deuce.

However, Kato and Morizono held on to their advantage, edging the fourth end to complete the win (11-8, 11-2, 10-12, 11-9).

“That’s our second title at a tournament of such level… When we were leading 2-0 in games, we let the situation go for a while, whereas our opponents took up a more confident style of play. In the fourth game we had several match-balls, with anxiety coming at 10-9, but we managed to apply an effective combination at our services and win”, Women’s Doubles winner Miyu Kato and Misaki Morizono.

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