Yang Yang (badminton)

Yang Yang
Personal information
Country  China
Born (1963-12-09) December 9, 1963
Nanjing, Jiangsu
Height 1.76 m (5 ft 9 in)
Handedness Left
Men's singles
Highest ranking 1

Yang Yang (simplified Chinese: 杨阳; traditional Chinese: 楊陽; born December 9, 1963 in Nanjing, Jiangsu) is a former Chinese badminton player.

He is one of the three badminton players in the world to have won two World Badminton Championships men's singles titles consecutively (1987, 1989), the others being Lin Dan and Chen Long. He also won the men's singles gold medal when badminton was a demonstration sport at the 1988 Summer Olympics. He possessed great agility, quick footwork, accurate power, and coolness under pressure, and is widely regarded as one of the finest singles players in the history of the sport.

Career

Yang began training in 1975, when he was 12 years old. He was recruited by the Chinese national team in 1983. He won his first Chinese national championship title in 1984. In 1985, he won the Hong Kong Open by defeating Morten Frost. In 1986, he won the Japan Open and the Hong Kong Open for the second straight year, and also helped China to regain the Thomas Cup (men's world team championship) from Indonesia by winning key matches. In the late 80s he dominated international singles play, winning the World Championships over Morten Frost in 1987 and over young Ardy Wiranata in 1989. In 1988 he also won the Olympic exhibition event in Seoul (badminton became an official Olympic sport at the next games in Barcelona). In 1989 he added the venerable All-England Championships to his tally; thus, by twenty-five, he captured all the titles by which "greatness" in the sport is generally measured.

China's Golden Generation

As a member of China's golden badminton generation of the 1980s which included the almost equally brilliant singles stars Zhao Jianhua and Xiong Guobao, Yang Yang played an important role in making China the major world badminton superpower. His play was instrumental in China's consecutive Thomas Cup (men's world team) titles in 1986, 1988, and 1990.

Retirement

In 1991, he retired as a player and started coaching in Malaysia. In the very next year, he guided Malaysia to its first Thomas Cup victory in 25 years, the only occasion since 1967 in which neither Indonesia nor China has won the cup. He then stayed in Malaysia to develop his business for badminton equipment. He returned to China in year 2000, and opened a badminton club named after himself in Nanjing.

Major achievements

Rank Event Date Venue
World Championships
1 Singles 1987 Beijing, CHN
1 Singles 1989 Jakarta, INA
3 Singles 1985 Calgary, CAN
Thomas Cup
1 Team 1986 Jakarta, INA
1 Team 1988 Kuala Lumpur, MAS
1 Team 1990 Tokyo, JPN
World Cup
1 Singles 1988 THA
1 Singles 1989 CHN
International Opens
1 Singles 1985, 1986 Hong Kong Open
1 Singles 1986 World Grand Prix finals
1 Singles 1986, 1989 Japan Open
1 Singles 1987 Swedish Open
1 Singles 1987 Malaysia Open
1 Singles 1987 Indonesia Open
1 Singles 1988 Singapore Open
1 Singles 1989 All England Open

Sources

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 8/31/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.