Long rallies are hardly rare in badminton doubles matches but the BWF World Tour Finals in Guangzhou have taken them to a different level.
The first two days of the tournament have witnessed some lung-bursting rallies in the doubles matches, with a couple of them crossing three figures in terms of shots played.
The longest rally of the tournament so far lasted 120 shots, played between England’s mixed doubles pair of Marcus Ellis/Lauren Smith and Thailand’s Dechapol Puavaranukroh/Sapsiree Taerattanachai on Thursday. The English pair won it in straight games, which was surprising considering how this rally went:
On Day 1, we had the first rally of 100 shots or more in the match between Japan’s mixed doubles pair of Yuta Watanabe/Arisa Higashino and Hafiz Faizal/Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja. The Indonesians won this rally, which took place in the decider, and went on to clinch the match as well: 21-18, 16-21, 21-18.
And then check out this rally on Day 1 in the match between world No 1 pair Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo and world No 7 duo Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen. This rally did not go into three figures but was great nonetheless. The match ended 22-20, 17-21, 13-21 in the Indonesians’ favour.
Gideon and Sukamuljo lost their second match on Thursday to world champions Li Junhui and Liu Yuchen, who recorded their first victory over the top seeds in over three years. The Chinese won 21-18, 24-22 on Day 2.