Xia Xuanze (born 5 January 1979) is a former
badminton
Badminton is a racquet sport played using racket (sports equipment), racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net (device), net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per s ...
player from
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
who played singles at the world level from the late 1990s through the first few years of the 21st century. Now he is a singles coach for the national team of China.
Career
At one time or another he experienced victory in most of badminton's biggest events. The exception came in his sole appearance at the
Olympics
The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competit ...
when he was beaten in the semifinals of the
2000 Games in Sydney by Indonesia's
Hendrawan. Xia settled for a bronze medal there after defeating Denmark's
in the playoff for third place. Earlier in that season, Xia had won the prestigious
All-England Championships over eighteen-year-old
Taufik Hidayat. He captured men's singles at the
IBF World Championships in
2003
2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater.
In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War.
Demographic ...
by defeating Malaysia's
Wong Choong Hann. Finally, in international team play, he was a member of the
Chinese squad that ended a long drought by capturing the highly coveted
Thomas Cup (men's world team competition and trophy) in
2004
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Events January
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.
In the
2010 Thomas Cup, Xia coached
Chen Jin, witnessing his country win 3–0 over Indonesia for their fourth consecutive
Thomas Cup.
In 2017, Xia Xuanze together with
Zhang Jun replaced
Li Yongbo as head coach of the Chinese badminton team.
Player attributes
Xia's game was marked by impressive speed and agility, aggressive and accurate net play, and adequate, if not overwhelming, overhead power. The power he used in his legs allowed him to "play the shot" very early. This attribute, combined with very sophisticated and consistent deceptive shots, gave some of his opponents the opportunity to win very few points at all.
Achievements
Olympic Games
''Men's singles''
World Championships
''Men's singles''
Asian Championships
''Men's singles''
IBF World Grand Prix
The World Badminton Grand Prix sanctioned by International Badminton Federation (IBF) from 1983 to 2006.
''Men's singles''
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Xia, Xuanze
1979 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Wenzhou
Badminton players from Zhejiang
Chinese male badminton players
Badminton players at the 2000 Summer Olympics
Olympic badminton players for China
Olympic bronze medalists for China
Olympic medalists in badminton
Medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics
Badminton players at the 2002 Asian Games
Asian Games bronze medalists for China
Asian Games medalists in badminton
Medalists at the 2002 Asian Games
World No. 1 badminton players
Chinese badminton coaches