Tai Tzu-ying was on the end of a shock defeat at badminton’s World Championships yesterday, the No. 1 from Taiwan going out in the quarter-finals to China’s He Bingjiao.
It was just Tai’s second defeat in 35 matches, a run which brought five titles and cemented her status as the woman to beat in Nanjing.
However, the 24-year-old was sloppy at times, making a series of unforced errors, particularly at the net, and going down 21-18, 7-21, 21-13 to the sixth seed over three unpredictable games.
Photo: AP
He in the semi-finals is to play Spain’s reigning Olympic champion Carolina Marin, who defeated India’s Saina Nehwal yesterday.
The 25-year-old Spaniard and seventh seed is chasing a third World crown and in this ominous form, she looks like she could get it.
Marin destroyed 10th seed and former world No. 1 Nehwal, who cut a demoralized figure by the end of the 21-6, 21-11 mauling.
The Spaniard is particularly vocal and demonstrative on court, shouting or screaming in Spanish after every winning point and before serving.
One member of the audience took to imitating her.
Asked what she was hollering, Marin replied with a laugh: “I cannot tell you. It is just something I keep to myself. It was not a strategy against Saina, it is something I do against any opponent. I do it for myself.”
“I learnt to do this some years ago; it was not something I did from the beginning of my career. That’s impossible, because I was too young,” she added. “I had to learn many things in my career and this is one thing I learnt.”
Nehwal said that she had no complaints about Marin’s behavior.
“The pace she is playing at is quite tremendous, she was very fast,” said Nehwal, who won Commonwealth Games gold earlier this year.
In the men’s competition, Taiwan’s Chou Tien-chen fell to Shi Yuqi from China 16-21, 21-15, 21-18, while Taiwan’s Chen Hung-ling and Wang Chi-lin defeated Japan’s Takuto Inoue and Yuki Kaneko 21-11, 17-21, 21-13.
Additional reporting by staff writer
TO THE TOP: After securing the international title on Saturday, Team Taiwan were to face Las Vegas to potentially win their 18th Little League World Series championship A team from Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School won the Little League Baseball World Series’ international title on Saturday by defeating Aruba 1-0 in the annual baseball tournament held in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The Taiwan team, competing under the name Chinese Taipei, were after press time last night to face a team from Las Vegas, Nevada, which beat a team from Fairfield, Connecticut, in the US championship 8-2. Taiwan are seeking to win their first Little League Baseball World Series title since 1996. “Really haven’t taken a moment to data dump right now on Taiwan,” Nevada manager T.J. Fescher said. “They’re a
Marc Marquez continued his winning streak as he cruised to victory in the Hungarian GP sprint by two seconds on Saturday night to pad his championship lead. It was a seventh straight Sprint victory for the Spaniard, who has also won the last six longer Sunday grand prix races on his factory Ducati. Fabio Di Giannantonio, an Italian with the VR46 Ducati satellite team was a distant second at Balaton Park, followed by his team-mate and compatriot Franco Morbidelli third. Marquez, a six-time world champion, started the race from pole position. “I felt someone really close on the first corner, from there I
Former European champions Celtic exited the UEFA Champions League in the qualifiers after a 3-2 penalty shoot-out defeat at Kazakhstan’s Kairat Almaty on Tuesday, following two goalless legs in the playoff tie. Kairat are to compete in the competition proper for the first time, while Norway’s Bodo/Glimt and Cyprus’s Pafos also secured debut appearances after coming through the playoffs. Celtic’s night ended in disappointment as they missed three penalties in the shoot-out, Daizen Maeda failing with the decisive spot-kick. The slugfest of a match went into extra-time with neither side finding the net and few overall chances, echoing the first
Russian Diana Shnaider continued her impressive winning streak in tour-level finals at the Monterrey Open on Saturday, beating compatriot Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in the WTA 500 event’s final. Shnaider had little trouble in the opening set but struggled in a topsy-turvy second, as Alexandrova clinched the set’s fifth and decisive break at 5-4 to force a decider. Third-seed Shnaider carved out an advantage early on in the third set when she broke Alexandrova in the first game and held serve to go 2-0 up, an advantage she would not relinquish. World No. 12 Shnaider is now unbeaten in her last five
RSS