The Malawian and her Chinese side progressed to the four-team final despite suffering a third defeat of the season on Friday
Tabitha Chawinga helped Jiangsu Suning clinch a championship spot even though they were defeated 2-1 by Beijing Phoenix in a Chinese Women’s Super League encounter on Saturday.
Following Tuesday’s 4-0 win over Guangdong Meizhou Huijun, the reigning champions aimed to wrap up their first-round outing on a high, having guaranteed a top-four finish with a game to spare.
In that Guangdong victory, the Malawi international was absent for the first time this term days after her brace handed Jiangsu a 2-0 win over Changchun Dazhong Zhuoyue to raise her tally to 11 goals.
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On their side, Beijing Phoenix were desperate to upset the champions to secure a spot in the top four, having kept their hopes alive with Tuesday’s 1-0 win over Henan Jianye thanks to Ma Xiaoxu.
Beijing made a brilliant start to the encounter as Zhang Linyan handed them a shock lead just 18 minutes into the match.
After the restart, Chawinga was brought on in hope of turning things around for Jiangsu but the ambitious visitors went on to double their lead through Gu Yasha on the hour mark.
And Jiangsu came close to earning an equaliser through Li Jianghong but her left-footed shot went inches wide in the 56th minute.
However, Beijing doubled the lead three minutes later when Gu Yasha found another breakthrough from the middle to score.
Chawinga almost pulled one back for Jiangsu in the 69th minute but her header off a long pass went inches above the post of Beijing.
On the brink of the final whistle, Jiangsu won a penalty after Zhang Jianyun was fouled inside the area and Liu Jing made no mistake from the spot to grab a consolation goal for the hosts.
Despite the defeat, Chawinga and her Chinese side finished fourth with 18 points from nine matches and kept alive their hopes of retaining the league diadem in the four-team tournament.
