Asian Games 2018: Hong Kong's Leo Au beats teammate Max Lee to take gold medal in men's singles squash
Hong Kong now has three gold medals and 25 medals overall, putting them 13th amongst competing countries
Hong Kong's Leo Au defeated his teammate Max Lee to take gold in men's singles squash at the Asian Games.Leo Au Chun-ming and Max Lee Ho-yin collected their gold and silver medals, smiled for the cameras and then swiftly put their game faces back on as they go in search of more glory for Hong Kong at the Asian Games.
Au beat Lee 11-8, 12-10, 6-11, 11-4 to capture his maiden gold as Hong Kong completed a podium one-two for the first time since the 2006 Doha Games when the city had gold and silver in women’s singles badminton.
And Hong Kong could be celebrating another gold medal after the badminton mixed doubles pair of Tang Chun-man and Tse Ying-suet overcame their Chinese opponents, Wang Yilyu and Huang Dongping, to reach the final following a nail-biting semi-final last night.
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The Hong Kong badminton pair lost to the Chinese duo only a fortnight ago at the world championships in Nanjing but turned the tables with a 2-1 (22-20, 19-21, 23-21) win over the world number two mainland combination.
Meanwhile, there is no rest for Au and Lee, who must now join forces in the squash team event, which starts on Monday.
“Of course I’m very happy because it is my first Asian Games medal and it is a gold, so I proved to myself that I can play at the top level in Asia,” said Au. “But we don’t have much time to celebrate because we have the team competition and we have to focus on that and hopefully win gold again.”
Lee, 30, who like Au came from two games behind to win his semi-final on Saturday found himself in a similar situation in the final.
Although he won the third game 11-6, there would be no fightback this time as Au picked his shots to perfection to run away with the fourth game.
“I’m happy with the silver,” said Lee. “Not very happy but just happy because we managed to get two players in the final.
The Hong Kong pair will meet top seed Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong, also from China, in the final.