Jason Gunawan looks for another breakthrough after returning to favoured home ground; Two doubles pairs in search for a 'restart' at home tournament

“LI-NING Hong Kong Open Badminton Championships 2025 part of the HSBC BWF World Tour Super 500” will kick off at the Hong Kong Coliseum on Tuesday. Amid the typhoon signal number 8 hoisted in the city, players took the last practice chance in the venue on Monday to prepare themselves for the tournament.

Home favourite Jason Gunawan, who stormed into the quarter-finals last year, was confident of making another strong run with the support of the fans. “The home fans can always give me a strong boost and my target is to achieve a better result than last year,” Gunawan said. The two pairs, Yeung Pui Lam and Yeung Nga Ting in the Women’s Doubles and Tang Chun Man and Tse Ying Suet in the Mixed Doubles, hoped the ‘home ground advantage’ can give them the chance to restart from scratch again, especially for the Tang/Tse pair, who suffered a disappointing run at the World Championships in Paris last month. “We want the home fans to help us regain our confidence,” the pair said.

It was the last chance for players to practice at the Coliseum on Monday before the Hong Kong Open kicks off with the qualifying round the following day. Players from teams such as Hong Kong, China, China, Canada and Malaysia all showed up at the Hung Hom venue despite the typhoon signal number 8. They included representatives from the home team – Lee Cheuk Yiu, Ng Ka Long Angus and Jason Gunawan in the Men’s Singles, Lo Sin Yan Happy and Wong Yi in the Women’s Singles, Tang Chun Man/Tse Ying Suet and Lui Chun Wai/Leung Yuet Yee in the Mixed Doubles, and Yeung Pui Lam/Yeung Nga Ting and Lui Lok Lok/Tsang Hiu Yan in the Women’s Doubles.

World number 40 Gunawan, who stunned players such as Kenta Nishimoto of Japan and Christo Popov of France to reach the quarter-finals before losing to Anthony Ginting of Indonesia last year, studied again the video footage of his performance recently, hoping the home ground advantage could bring him another favourable campaign this year. “Whenever I play at the Coliseum, I always find additional confidence to help my performance. Perhaps this is because of the staunch support of the fans that gives me a strong boost,” he said. “I look forward to the same kind of support this time so that I can achieve even better results than last year.”

The home gun will have to start from the qualifiers because of his ranking with world number 73 Moh. Zaki Ubaidillah of Indonesia his first opponent. If Gunawan goes through, he will meet fast improving Victor Lai of Canada, a bronze medallist at the recent World Championships, in the next stage. He said the Canadian was hitting his top form recently but Gunawan remained upbeat. “I think I am as good as him but of course there is no sure win,” he said. “In fact, every match is difficult and I have to take it one by one.”

Gunawan said he was still working hard to find his best form over the past six months but with the home ground advantage, he hoped to regain his winning touch. “I have been making improvement but perhaps I still need to consolidate all the good components to show on the court. I have set sights on making a better result than last year and hopefully the Hong Kong Open can be a turning point, but I have to take it match by match before reaching the goal.”

Top Mixed Doubles pair of Tang Chun Man and Tse Ying Suet was crowned the Asian champions in April but then missed a spot in the last 16 at the World Championships last month. Tang admitted it was a disappointing result as they did not deliver. “After returning from Paris, we took the opportunity to rest, hoping to put the result behind as quick as possible,” Tang said. “We hope to improve our form when we kick off the first round on Wednesday so that we can start again from the Hong Kong Open and the upcoming tournaments on the world tour.”

Tse also agreed they were let down by the World Championships result and would try to readjust their form as soon as possible. “We are still trying to work out the best form with our new coaches and it takes time,” Tse said. “We don’t have too much time after returning from Pairs but we will definitely give our best in front of the home crowd.” The pair made it to the semi-finals at the Coliseum last year and hoped to enjoy the same kind of support from the fans. “We hope the fans can help us regain our best form,” she said.

Seeded number five in the tournament, the pair will meet Wong Tien Ci and Lim Chiew Sien of Malaysia in the opening round.

Paris Olympians Yeung Pui Lam and Yeung Nga Ting also lost in the last 16 at the World Championships. Pui Lam said they were still trying to find the best form under the new head coach and the two doubles coaches. “The trio has given us many new ideas and we are still consolidating them,” she said.

Nga Ting also said it would take time to absorb all these new ideas before they could put them into practice. “The coaches are from Malaysia where they have much better conditions. But they have provided us with many new ideas and we have to find out which of these can suit us well and help us work better,” she said.

Nga Ting was struggled to find her best at last year’s tournament where they lost in the opening round because of her back injury. Returning to the Coliseum, she was extremely excited even during practice. “There was no such excitement last year as we were suffering from injuries. But it’s not the same this time as we are in good conditions. We will meet a pair from Chinese Taipei in the first round and we hope to deliver with the support of the home fans,” she said.

The two Yeungs are seeded eighth in the Women’s Doubles where they will take on Hsu Ya-Ching and Sung Yu-Hsuan of Chinese Taipei in their first encounter.

The “LI-NING Hong Kong Open Badminton Championships 2025 part of the HSBC BWF World Tour Super 500” will be held at the Hong Kong Coliseum on September 9-14. Tickets are now available at Urbtix. For details, please visit the official home page www.hkopenbadminton.org or contact the Badminton Association of Hong Kong, China at 2504 8318.