Great Neck South's Kayla Wu wins Nassau girls badminton singles crown

The birdie flew into the net off Judy Liang’s return, ending the match. Kayla Wu had what she wanted for the last year, since she lost in the Nassau girls badminton singles final for the second time. The great Great Neck South sophomore had a county championship to call her own.

Allison Ng, who beat her both times, had graduated from Jericho. Wu took motivation from the past.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it,” Wu said.

Wu defeated Liang, her eighth-grade opponent from Jericho, 21-4, 21-4, Saturday to cap a dominant day inside Jericho’s gym.

“It’s really nice because I played in seventh and ninth grade and I made it to the finals, but I never won county champ,” Wu said. “So this is good.”

This is a girl from a badminton family. Her dad, Chibing Wu, is a coach who owns two badminton centers, in Westbury and Flushing. Her brother, Ryan Wu, is a senior who won the boys county singles title three times.

“It was upsetting that she did lose two years in the final,” Ryan said. “But every time I’d see her in training afterward, she would always work much harder. … Sometimes she would ask me to come with her to do physical workouts or go play with her or just accompany her in any situation. 

“So I think because of her motivation, I think it was expected (for her) to win.”

Now she has joined him in the county champions’ club.

“It’s nice,” she said, “because I’m close with my brother.”

Her father, who has trained Olympians, introduced her to badminton. He has coached her for nearly 11 years. She started training when she was 4. But she admitted that she only really started liking the sport this last year.

“When I was younger, I didn’t really want to play,” she said. “But now I’ve started outside tournaments as well and that’s motivation. Badminton, it’s a really big part of my life.”

It took winning five matches to claim her crown. The poised Wu won 21-0, 21-2; 21-6, 21-3; and 21-4, 21-4. Then she beat Great Neck North’s Kirsten Tam in the semis, 21-7, 21-4, before that one-sided sweep against Liang.

“I train under her dad,” Liang said. “She’s always really, really good. … I really look up to her.”

In more ways than one. Wu is 5-8 1/2 and covers the court really well.

“That’s one of the things she had to work on the most was the agility because her legs are so long,” Great Neck South coach Allison Romeo Gottfried said. “But her strength and her athleticism really takes her far.”