The 35-year-old three-time Olympic silver medallist had started the tournament as the eighth seed, came through his final match in straight games 21-14, 21-19 to claim this BWF Superseries title at the Hong Kong Coliseum. 

Lee, ranked as the world's top seed for 199 consecutive weeks from August 2008 until June 2012, now overtakes Chen Long's compatriot Lin Dan for the most number of Hong Kong Open wins.

In the women's event, Chinese Taipei's Tai Tzu-ying justified her number one seeding for the competition by beating second favourite, India's P V  Sindhu in just two games.

Sindhu will be ruing her mistakes in the final which cost her the title.

After falling 11-8 behind in the first game, the Indian pegged it back to 18-18 but then failed to close out the game, allowing Tai back into the contest.

The 23-year-old eventually took the first game 21-18.

The second game saw Tai once again take advantage of Sindhu's mistakes.

The Rio 2016 silver medallist had raced into an 11-8 lead but then started committing errors which eventually saw her drop five straight points, giving her opponent an 18-12 advantage.

The 22-year-old did manage to pull it back to 18-20 at one stage but Tai claimed the title with a drop shot.

The first event of the day was the mixed doubles affair between fifth seeds, Chinese duo Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong, and unseeded Danish pair Mathias Christiansen and Christinna Pedersen.

Siewei and Yaqiong showed the gulf in class between the two teams by making short work of the Danes, winning the match 21-15, 21-13 in just 35 minutes, the shortest contest of the day.

There was also a convincing victory for the favourites in the men’s doubles with top seeds Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo of Indonesia dispatching Mads Conrad-Petersen and Mads Pieler Kolding of Denmark 21-12, 21-18 in just 37 minutes.

Before the final round of competition, many would have said that the women’s doubles final, which saw first seed pair Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan of China against unseeded Indonesian partnership Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu, would be the most one-sided of today's five finals.

It turned out, however, to be the most competitive match of the day and was the only one to go to a deciding game, hitting the one hour 10 minute mark in the process.

The first game saw unseeded pair Polii and Rahayu cause a shock as, despite being 2-0 down early on, they eventually took the game relatively comfortably 21-14.

Unfortunately for the Indonesian pair, with the Championship slipping from their grasp, Qingchen and Yifan rallied to take the final games 21-16, 21-15.