China with the Uber Cup [Photo by Sportalasia] |
China - tagged as unbeatable throughout the competition - lived up to their billing by easing to an effortless 3-0 victory at the Putra Stadium.
World number three Dai Yun sealed the Chinese women's victory, beating Mette Sorensen in the third rubber of the best-of-five match 11-8, 11-1.
Denmark's hopes of scoring what would have been a massive upset had evaporated after the first rubber, when world champion Camilla Martin was beaten by world number two Gong Zhichao.
All England champion Gong - who had won three out of four of her previous encounters against the Dane - played superbly to record a clinical 11-9, 11-5 win.
China went 2-0 ahead when their world and Olympic champion doubles pair Ge Fei and Gu Jun overwhelmed Helene Kirkegaard and Rikke Olsen 15-2, 15-9.
Ge and Gu, who have dominated women's doubles for the past five years, outclassed the Danish duo with a scintillating array of winners, to extend their unbeaten record against Kirkegaard and Olsen to 13.
Their 24-minute win set up world number three Dai to clinch China's seventh Uber Cup title in the third rubber.
Sorensen resisted Dai briefly early on but as soon as the Chinese player got her measure the game was up, Dai winning in just 20 minutes.
Remarkably, China went through the entire tournament without dropping a rubber, beating all their three group opponents 5-0 before blanking South Korea in the semi-finals and Denmark in the final.
Only one other team in the modern era - China in 1984 - has managed the same feat.
"I thought we would win even if they played at their best and they played very well," China coach Li Yongbo said.
"Our women are very strong at the moment.We will be working to try and get even stronger," he said, adding that Denmark, South Korea and Japan were the countries most likely to challenge their dominance.
"They all have good groups of young players who will get better," he said.Li was guarded about his team's chances at the forthcoming Olympics however."I don't want to comment on that.It's four months away," he said.
Denmark coach Kenneth Larsen was gracious in defeat, paying tribute to the Chinese team.
"For us, reaching the final and being second is almost as good as winning.It was pretty obvious that China were going to win this competition - they could have sent their second team and they probably would still have won," Larsen said.
"They are just on a higher level than everybody at the moment.But I'm happy with our team because this was the first time in 40 years that they reached the final...e've beaten Malaysia, Korea, Japan and Indonesia which is a great effort.
"But China are much better than us.It's as simple as that.But we have to find some way of getting closer to them - it's not fun to be number two or number three the whole time," he said.
| 