Sports fans and officials heaped praise on Taiwan’s “Badminton Queen” Tai Tzu-ying (戴資穎) for defending her title with a two-set victory at the Yonex-Sunrise Hong Kong Open yesterday.
Top seed Tai defeated P.V. Sindhu of India with the same 21-18 score in both sets in the women’s final to claim her seventh championship title in a major international competition this year.
The victory secured Tai’s grip on the world No. 1 ranking.
Photo: AFP
It was the first time in 11 years that a female shuttler successfully defended the Hong Kong Open title, which is one of the Badminton World Federation’s (BWF) World Superseries tournaments.
However, it was not always smooth sailing for Tai this year. Taiwanese fans were concerned about a perceived decline in form, fearing she had suffered minor injuries, as she crashed out in the quarter-finals at the Tahoe China Open earlier this month, and failed to progress into the final eight at the Victor Korea Open in Seoul in September.
Yesterday’s win took Tai 45 minutes and improved her career head-to-head result against Olympic silver medalist and world No. 3 Sindhu to seven wins against three losses.
“Sindhu is very quick and fast on the attack, and I told myself to have patience in this game. It was difficult to win points against her, because she is much taller than me,” Tai told reporters after the match.
Speaking about her seven major titles this year, five of which were part of the BWF Superseries, Tai said: “It has been a good year. I did not have the many ups and downs as in past years. I am quite satisfied with my performance and hope to have even more consistency next year.”
“It is not necessary for me to win at every major tournament. I think getting into the final eight and semi-finals are good results. It will not be possible for me to win so many titles next year, because it is very tough going every time. Let us just leave it to destiny,” Tai said, adding that she will next year focus on the BWF World Championships and the Asia Games.
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