TOKYO: Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi retained her world women’s badminton title in front of her home crowd in Tokyo on Sunday August 28, beating China’s Chen Yufei 21-12, 10-21, 21-14.
Top-seeded Yamaguchi, who won her first world title last year in the Spanish city of Huelva, had to dig deep to meet Olympic champion Chen’s challenge.
Chen was aiming to become the first player from China’s badminton powerhouse to win a world women’s singles title since 2011.
China has won a total of 15 women’s world singles titles – five times more than any other country – but No. 4 seed Chen was the country’s first women’s world runner-up since 2014.
Yamaguchi, 25, qualified for the final without losing a match this week in Tokyo.
She steadily turned the screw on Chen in the opener before sealing the deal with a no-nonsense smash.
Chen came back strong in game two and tied the game when Yamaguchi landed a return into the net.
Yamaguchi took over with a big lead early in game three and she held it off, closing the game when Chen hit a return into the net.
The win gave Yamaguchi his second title of the year, having lifted the trophy at the All England Open in March.
The women’s singles competition at this year’s world championships has been hit by injury, with 2019 Indian champion PV Sindhu and 2017 Japanese winner Nozomi Okuhara both withdrawing on the eve of the tournament.
In the men’s final earlier today, Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen claimed his second world title with a 21-5, 21-16 win over Thailand’s Kunlavut Vitidsarn.