Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying yesterday defeated Spain’s Carolina Marin 21-17, 10-21, 21-19 at the China Open to advance to the semi-finals today.
Tai faces An Se-young in the last four in Changzhou after the South Korean defeated China’s Han Yue 15-21, 21-15, 21-17.
Tai emerged victorious in her quarter-final after 1 hour, 8 minutes on the court. Prior to yesterday, the two had an equal head-to-head record, having won 10 times each.
Photo: AFP
Tai seized an early advantage in game 1 to lead 8-6 and then rocketed away with an 8-2 run to reach 16-8. Marin pulled the score back to 17-14, but some deft touches by the Taiwanese closed out the game.
In the second game, Tai fell behind badly as Marin put together two runs of unanswered points, reaching leads of 9-2 and 16-3 before Tai regained some control, but from too far behind.
In the third, a service error by the Spaniard helped Tai seize a 5-0 lead, but Marin stormed back — forcing mistakes from her opponent — to seize the lead at 19-18.
However, the Taiwanese applied pressure to score three points in a row, including a winning smash, and claim victory.
“There are several things I did not do well in this match,” Tai told reporters after leaving the court. “I just need to recover quickly and hope I can find a better state tomorrow [today]” in the semi-finals.
In the other women’s singles semi, Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi is to play Chen Yufei of China.
Tai was the only Taiwanese left standing in Beijing after the mixed doubles pair of Ye Hong-wei and Lee Chia-hsin were eliminated 21-15, 13-21, 21-16 by Chen Tang Jie and Toh Ee Wei of Malaysia.
At the BNI Indonesia Masters in Medan, Taiwanese who had reached the semi-finals as of press time last night included Chiu Pin-chian in the women’s singles after her 21-16, 21-18 win over India’s Mansi Singh in their quarter-final.
In the women’s doubles, Sung Yu-hsuan and Wang Szu-min beat compatriots Hung En-tzu and Lin Yu-pei 21-15, 21-19.
In the men’s doubles Chen Zhi-ray and Lu Chen defeated Indonesia’s Muhammad al-Farizi and Nikolaus Joaquin 21-15, 21-18.
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