The Chinese tennis player Shi Yuqi, number one in the world rankings, will not have won a title in 2026 either – Photo: BWF
The Thailand Masters is just a Super 300 tournament and is not particularly well regarded in badminton at the highest level. Nevertheless, it offers China the chance to end their month-long drought without a title in the men’s singles.
Before the Thailand Masters, Chinese men’s singles players suffered defeats at the Malaysia Open (Super 1000), the India Open (Super 500) and the Indonesia Masters (Super 500).
Shi Yuqi, the current world number one, suffered a disappointing loss to Kunlavut Vitidsarn in the final of the Malaysia Open.
Shi Yuqi narrowly lost the first set of the final game 21:23 and then had to retire after losing the second set 1:6 due to an “injury”.
Injuries are unavoidable, but Chinese fans are still unhappy. On numerous news sites such as Sina and 163 They criticized Shi Yuqi for “always giving up in hopeless situations.”
And the world number one actually withdrew from the major tournaments that followed. Without him, there were no other Chinese men’s singles players strong enough to challenge for the title. Therefore, after four BWF tournaments in January – from Super 1000 to Super 300 – China remained without a men’s singles title.
In women’s singles, China currently has many strong players such as Chen Yufei, Wang Zhiyi… But they all have to accept a bitter truth – the chance of winning the championship only exists if An Se Young does not take part in the tournament.
In fact, the South Korean world number one has been dominating the badminton world, and Chinese players in particular, for over a year and has racked up an impressive winning streak of more than 10 consecutive tournaments.
In January 2026 alone, An Se Young defeated Wang Zhiyi consecutively in the finals of both the Malaysia Open and India Open.
It was only at the Indonesia Masters, when An Se Young did not take part, that Chen Yufei seized the opportunity and won her country’s first women’s singles title of 2026.
But at the Thailand Masters everything started again. The Chinese team was extremely disappointing and failed to win a single title, not even in their strongest double disciplines.
After four major tournaments at the beginning of 2026, China was only able to win 4 of 20 titles. What’s even more remarkable is that only one of these titles was won in singles.
Chinese badminton fans have reason to worry about the future of their sport as they do not dominate in terms of quality or quantity.
Those: https://tuoitre.vn/trung-quoc-khung-hoang-nang-ne-o-mon-cau-long-20260201201253223.htm
