Australia’s Ashwant Gobinathan and Hsuan-Yu Wendy Chen won the singles titles at the 2016 Oceania Championships on Thursday.
Australia claimed all five titles, with Matthew Chau/Sawan Serasinghe (Men’s Doubles), Tiffany Ho/Jennifer Tam (Women’s Doubles) and Robin Middleton/Leanne Choo (Mixed Doubles) being the other winners.
There was plenty at stake in the Women’s Singles final. With Lai trailing Chen by just 788 points, the winner would emerge as Oceania’s leading contender for the Rio Olympics. Chen (featured image) stamped out Lai’s aspirations as she dominated all the way for a 21-13 21-15 victory.
Gobinathan, who was the beneficiary of Remi’s Rossi’s upset of top seed Pit Seng Low in the quarter-finals as he will gain enough points to overtake Pit on the Road to Rio rankings, took 47 minutes to beat Tahiti’s Rossi, 21-17 21-16.
Joy Lai’s woes continued into the Mixed Doubles final; she and Anthony Joe were no match for Robin Middleton/Leanne Choo (21-11 21-9).
The Men’s Doubles final was the most one-sided of all five finals. Top seeds Matthew Chau/Sawan Serasinghe destroyed the challenge of Tahiti’s Leo Cucuel/Remi Rossi 21-11 21-12.
The opening match of the day was hard-fought. Top seeds Tiffany Ho/Jennifer Tam were pushed all the way by compatriots Gronya Somerville/Melinda Sun before they squeaked through in just over an hour: 21-17 19-21 22-20.
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