Momota advances to championship match at badminton's World Tour Finals

Momota advances to championship match at badminton's World Tour Finals

Kento Momota. (File Photo: Xinhua/Li Bo/IANS)

Guangzhou (China), Dec 15 (IANS) Japanese men's singles world No. 1 Kento Momota vanquished a fourth straight opponent here on Saturday to reach the championship match at badminton's World Tour Finals, the sport's elite year-end event.

After three consecutive straight-game victories in round-robin play, Momota scored a relatively routine 21-14, 21-12 victory in the semi-finals over South Korean world No. 6 Son Wan-ho.

Son was forced to try shots with little margin for error and that led to costly mistakes, including a smash wide of the sideline on match point, reports Efe news.

Next up for Momota in the championship match will be Chinese world No. 2 Shi Yuqi, who saved a match point in the second game before rallying to defeat India's Sameer Verma 12-21, 22-20, 21-17 in Saturday's other semi-final.

Sunday's contest will be a rematch of this year's BWF World Championships final, which Momota won 21-11, 21-13.

--IANS

kk/sed

(This story was auto-published from a syndicated feed. No part of the story has been edited by The Quint.)