Taiwanese badminton ace Tai Tzu-ying yesterday advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s singles at the BWF World Tour Finals in Hangzhou, China, despite losing to South Korean world No. 1 An Se-young 21-17, 21-15.
Tai has had a difficult year by her standards, reaching only three finals, and had to pull out of the two tournaments she played last month with injuries.
She was hoping to finish the year on a high in Hangzhou, but was nearly eliminated after her loss to An.
Photo: AFP
At the Tour Finals, the eight players in the women’s singles were put into two preliminary round-robin groups of four, with the top two in each group advancing to the semi-finals.
An and Tai finished with 2-1 records, but An placed first in Group A because she won four of six games she played, while Tai won four of the seven.
After Tai lost in straight games yesterday she was in a precarious position and a win by Kim Ga-eun of South Korea over Gregoria Mariska Tunjung of Indonesia would have sent Tai home.
Fortunately for Tai, Tunjung outlasted Kim 21-14, 20- 22, 21-17 in 63 minutes, leaving both of them with 1-2 records.
Tai could have avoided the drama by beating An or losing to her in three games, but that would have been a tall order against the world No. 1, to whom Tai had lost five times in a row in straight games.
The victory in 49 minutes gave An a 10-2 career record against Tai.
The 29-year-old Taiwanese is due to face Spanish world No. 5 Carolina Marin in the semi-finals today.
The Taiwanese is 1-3 against the Spaniard this year and 11-11 in her career.
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