Taiwanese Olympic silver medalist Tai Tzu-ying (???) stormed into the semifinals of the women's singles at the BWF World Championships in southern Spain after outmaneuvering defending champion Pusarla V. Sindhu of India on Friday.
The top-seeded Tai, ranked No. 1 in the world, overpowered the sixth-seeded Sindhu 21-17, 21-13 in a quarterfinals match that lasted 42 minutes, helping break her World Championships jinx and extending her head-to-head advantage over the Indian star to 15-5.
In her six previous World Championships appearances, she had never made it further than the quarterfinals, losing in that round five times in a row, including to Sindhu in 2019.
The 27-year-old Taiwanese had also never gotten further than the round of 16 at an Olympics before winning silver in Tokyo earlier this year.
She will next face world No. 9 He Bingjiao (???) of China on Saturday for a spot in the finals. Tai has an 8-2 record against the Chinese, but one of the losses came in the quarterfinals of the 2018 World Championships.
On Friday, Tai showed little rust despite playing in her first event since the Olympics at the end of July, and the quality of her play was more satisfying to her than being guaranteed her first World Championships medal.
"I'm happy with the way I played. I didn't have a lot of mistakes and that makes me very happy and satisfied," Tai was quoted as saying on the BWF website.
"Sindhu is a very strong player and very fast, so I had to play fast too and cover the court well," she said.
Tai kept Sindhu off balance through much of the first game with her deft defensive play and wide variety of angled shots to blunt her opponent's power, helping her maintain a comfortable lead for much of the game that narrowed to 19-17.
The Taiwanese star then ran off the final two points to take a 1-0 lead.
Sindhu was more assertive in the second game, seemingly interested in playing faster to disrupt Tai's rhythm and scoring several winners for which Tai had no answer.
But at 12-12, Sindhu suddenly lost her momentum, and Tai reeled off nine of the next 10 points to clinch the match, leaving her to think of what comes next.
"In all my matches so far I have been patient, and that's the biggest positive for me. For the next match [against He], it's important to stay patient and not make mistakes," she said.
Tai's campaign in Huelva opened with a 21-10, 21-14 victory over world No. 27 Evgeniya Kosetskaya of Russia after having received a bye in the first round.
She then defeated world No. 21 Kristy Gilmour of Scotland 21-10, 19-21, 21-11 on Thursday to reach the quarterfinals.
The 2021 BWF World Championships is Tai's first tournament since the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games earlier in the year, where she lost a thrilling final to China's Chen Yufei (???), who is not playing in Spain.
The world No. 1 also powered her way into the finals of three tournaments in Bangkok in January 2021, before clinching the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals 2020, and she won the BWF Female Player of the Year award this month in recognition of her achievements in 2020 and 2021.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel