Taiwan badminton ace Chou loses in final of Swiss Open

Taipei, March 27 (CNA) Taiwanese badminton ace Chou Tien-chen (周天成) lost in the final of the men's singles at the Swiss Open to Koki Watanabe of Japan on Sunday.

The third-seeded and world No. 6 Taiwanese player lost a hard-fought match 20-22, 21-18, 12-21 to his Japanese opponent in a match that lasted one hour and 14 minutes at the St. Jakobshalle arena.

Chu started out strong and established a six point lead at 17-11. However, Watanabe won seven of the next eight points to tie the score at 18-18.

With the game on a knife's edge, the score reached 20-20 but Watanabe then dug deep to win the next two points and close out the first game 22-20.

Despite struggling early in the second game, the Taiwanese shuttler regained his tempo to trail by only one point at 17-18, before winning four consecutive points to win the game 21-18 and tie the match 1-1.

In the third game Chou began to lose concentration and gave away several points with unforced errors to trail 9-12 before losing the next 10 points in a row. He then lost the third game 12-21 and the match 2-1.

It was the first time Chou has played world No. 37 Watanabe.

The Taiwanese shuttler won the Taipei Open title in 2022, and was runner-up in the Japan Open and Hylo Open in Germany last year.

The Swiss Open is a BWF World Tour Super 300 event held March 21-26.