Jung Jae-sung

Jung Jae-sung (also spelled Chung Jae-sung; ; ; 25 August 1982 – 9 March 2018) was a South Korean professional badminton player who specialized in men's doubles.

Jung was born on 25 August 1982 in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province.

He started playing badminton at 7, at his local elementary school.

In 2000, Jung was part of the Korean national junior team competed at the World Junior Championships in Guangzhou, China, and Asian Junior Championships in Kyoto, Japan.

In Guangzhou, he won the mixed team bronze after his team lost 2–3 to China, and in Kyoto, he won the boys' doubles silver and boys' team bronze.

He entered the South Korea national badminton team in 2001.

In 2003, Jung, who represented Wonkwang University, won the men's doubles title at the National Championships in Gyeonggi partnered with Lee Jae-jin.

In 2004, he and Lee Jae-jin retained their title, and in 2006, Jung repeated his success partnered with Lee Yong-dae.

In 2005, Jung won the Thailand Open with his former partner Lee Jae-jin, beating the Danes Lars Paaske and Jonas Rasmussen in the finals.

In 2006, Jung won the Thailand Open together with Lee Yong-dae; they had a walkover in the final against compatriots Lee Jae-jin, with whom Jung won the last Thailand Open, and Hwang Ji-man.

At the Asian Games, Jung and Lee became bronze medalists after losing the semi-finals to Luluk Hadiyanto and Alvent Yulianto of Indonesia in the individual men's doubles event.

In the team event, South Korea lost to China in the final 2–3, thus gaining Jung a silver medal.

In 2007, Jung and Lee Yong-dae participated in the Malaysia Open, the first ever BWF Super Series event.

There they got through the first round but had to resign due to injury.

However a week later they blew away competition to take the first prize at the Korea Open.

Jung and Lee lost to Lee Jae-jin and Hwang Ji-man in the final of the German Open.

Jung participated to the 2007 Sudirman Cup with the South Korea team.

The team lost to China in the semi-finals with a score of 0–3.

In July, after a period of disappointing results in men's doubles, Lee became runner-up with Jung at the Thailand Open, losing to Lee Jae-jin and Hwang Ji-man.

Not much later, the pair went on to take the silver medal in the 2007 BWF World Championships.

They were defeated in the final by Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia, 19–21, 19–21.

The rest of the year also resulted in quite disappointing achievements, not getting past quarterfinals in any major events, except in the French Open.

Jung and Lee there lost to the eventual winners, Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng of China.

He was a two-time winner of the All-England Open, gold medalist at the 2008 Badminton Asian Championships, and won the bronze medal at the 2012 Olympic Games in the final tournament of his professional career.

To start 2008, Jung, together with Lee, disappointingly lost to the unseeded pair of Simon Mollyhus and Anders Kristiansen in the second round of the Malaysia Open.

In South Korea, things went a bit better, achieving a quarterfinal.

There they lost to eventual runners-up Luluk Hadiyanto and Alvent Yulianto of Indonesia.

More than a month later, Jung and Lee came back with a bang to win the All England Open, beating Malaysians Choong Tan Fook and Lee Wan Wah in a thrilling semi-final (coming back from a 16–20 deficit in the third game) and compatriots Lee Jae-jin and Hwang Ji-man in the finals.

A week later, the pair were victorious in the Swiss Open too.

At the Asian Championships Jung and Lee gained the gold medal, beating Candra Wijaya and Nova Widianto of Indonesia in the final.

He competed at the Thomas Cup, helped his team reach the final round, where Jung and Lee were the only ones to score a point for South Korea against China in the final, which ended in a 3–1 win for China.

In November, Jung also won the 2008 China Open Super Series.

Not having participated in the two following Superseries events, supposedly because of their preparations for the Summer Olympics, Jung and Lee were disappointingly knocked out in the first round in Beijing.

His partner went on to get the gold medal in mixed doubles.

At the London Olympics, Jung, together with Lee, won the men's doubles bronze medal.

The pair who were seeded two, advanced to the knock-out stage after placing first, won three matches in group D stage.

They lost the match in the semi-final match against Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen of Denmark, and in the bronze medal match, they beat the Malaysian pair Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong in straight games.

This was Jung's final tournament.

Together with his partner Lee Yong-dae, Jung spent forty weeks as World No. 1 in the men's doubles discipline between 2009 and 2012, winning eighteen BWF World Superseries tournaments and placing second at the BWF World Championships on two occasions in 2007 and 2009.

On 9 March 2018, at the age of 35, Jung died suddenly of a heart attack at his home in Hwaseong after reportedly suffering from cardiac arrhythmia.