Taiwanese badminton ace Tai Tzu-ying on Saturday celebrated her historic 500 wins by adding one more to advance to the women’s singles final at the Yonex French Open.
On Friday, the world No. 4 shuttler became the first badminton player to achieve 500 wins in women’s singles on the BWF World Tour.
The next day she made it 501, overcoming an opening loss to Japan’s Aya Ohori to book a final against world No. 3 Chen Yufei of China.
Photo courtesy of Badmintonphoto via CNA
Tai is 9-1 in head-to-head matches with Ohori, who beat the Taiwanese player in the round of 16 at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, earlier this month.
In the opener at Cesson-Sevigne’s Glaz Arena, the players rallied in a seesaw battle, leveling the scoreboard at 20-20, before Ohori scored two points to take the first game.
Tai quickly made a comeback, leading early by a wide 10-1 margin before sealing the second game 21-10 to tie the match.
While her Japanese opponent came out firing in the third, Tai stormed home to clinch the winning game 22-20.
Tai was yesterday to play Chen for the Taiwanese’s second French Open title after her 2017 victory.
On Friday, Tai reached the 500-win milestone in the quarter-finals with a 21-16, 10-21, 21-17 victory over Thailand’s Supanida Katethong that lasted 62 minutes.
The two rallied back and forth to tie 11-11 in the opening game, before Tai pulled ahead with consecutive points to take the first game 21-16.
Katethong made an impressive comeback to beat the Taiwanese by 11 points in the next game, before Tai aggressively shut down her opponent in the third.
Last week, Tai already achieved a milestone in her BWF World Tour career, attaining 500 singles and doubles wins (497 singles, two women’s doubles, one mixed doubles) after her triumph in the round of 16 at the Denmark Open.
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