Yesterday at the 2024 National Badminton Championships, current men’s doubles stars and world top-ten pair, Liang Weikeng and Ren Xiangyu, were unexpectedly defeated 1-2 (13-21, 21-18, 12-21) by the junior national team players Zhu Yijun and Hu Keyuan.
Zhu Yijun and Hu Keyuan shared that facing such seasoned and skilled opponents, they didn’t focus too much on the outcome beforehand. “We just wanted to focus on our own performance,” they said, “even when trailing in the second game, we decided to take it one point at a time.” Reflecting on their 2-1 victory, Zhu Yijun mentioned, “Perhaps we got a bit lucky to win, but it wouldn’t have been surprising if we lost. We simply wanted to learn from them.” Hu Keyuan added that the loss in the World Junior Championship finals taught him a lot, reinforcing the importance of maintaining self-belief.
Ren Xiangyu, male, born on 23 October 1998, is a Chinese badminton player.
A native of Luzhou, Sichuan, Ren Xiangyu showed his badminton talent at the age of 5. At the age of 11, Ren Xiangyu passed the selection for the Sichuan Provincial Junior Championships and was chosen to join the Sichuan Provincial Training Team. After that, he went to train with the Tianjin team for a year before finally registering with the Guangdong Dongguan team at the age of 14.
In December 2015, Ren Xiangyu was selected from the Dongguan team to join the badminton national second team doubles group
In early 2016, he officially entered the national team and began training.
On 18 June 2018, Ou Xuanyi/Ren Xiangyu won the men’s doubles title at the 2018 Badminton World Tour U.S. Open.
On 2 May 2021, in the men’s doubles final of the 2021 National Badminton Championships and Qualifying Tournament for the National Games badminton event in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, Guangdong duo Ren Xiangyu/Liang Weikang won the title with a 2-0 victory over Beijing duo Zhang Nan/Feng Yanzhe.
In January 2022, the coaching staff of the Chinese badminton team announced a list of four pairs of men’s doubles starters. Among them, Ren Xiangyu from Guangdong team stood out and he will be paired with Tan Qiang, the runner-up of the World Championships, to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
