BWF World Championships' 18 Highlights

The recently-concluded BWF World Championships 2018 in Nanjing, China, witnessed the notable encounters and eventually scripting histories at the podium; the Spaniard Carolina Marin won her third Worlds title in Women’s Singles and Kento Momota broke the jinx of his past to clinch the title.

Top Seeds oust

Viktor Axelsen of Men’s Singles lost to the lower seed and the senior Chen Long in the Quarter-Finals with 21-19, 21-11 in the match that lasted for almost an hour. While, Tai Tzu Ying faced the same show against He Bingjiao of Women’s Singles with 21-18, 7-21, 21-13.

In Men’s Doubles, Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo lost against the future runner-ups Takeshi Kamura/Keigo Sonoda with 21-19, 21-18, while in the Women’s Doubles, the tough Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan lost to Greysia Polii/Apriyani Rahayu with 23-21, 23-21.

Meanwhile in the Finals match of the Mixed Doubles, top seeds Zheng Siwei/Huang Yaqiong trounced the second seeds Wang Yilyu/Huang Dongping with 21-17, 21-19 in 49 minutes.

Hot Shot:

In the Quarter-Finals match against Kento Momota, Sai Praneeth delivered the quick-lightening shot in an easy-peasy rally, which was won by the Indian.

After grabbing an early lead of 1-0, the Indian’s showing was too good to spectate that he excelled well with the backhand, long jump returns, and the brilliant angled-backhand shot.

What a Rally!

In the Quarter-Finals match between Chris Adcock/Gabrielle Adcock and Wang Yilyu/Huang Dongping, the latter amazed with agility to win the rally.

Best Defence

In the match of Men’s Doubles finals, Kamura and Sonoda exhibited great defense forgetting the match of badminton but the battle of returns. Never settled and never went out of focus. Though the rally was won by the Li and Liu, the defense mechanism of the Japanese was the showstopper.

Sindhu’s great comeback in Semis

From the trail of 12-19 to the deficit in the second game of the Semi-Finals match against Akane Yamaguchi, Sindhu’s sheer dedication and the crave to reach finals is commendable.

The Indian’s performance of just-do-it attitude ended the match in straight sets.

Sindhu with the good consistency, defended her silver medal at the Worlds, to add as fourth medal into her cabin. She surely had experienced the tournament which tested her skills, strategies and agility playing against the quality players; Sun Ji Hyun in Pre-Quarters, defending champion Okuhara in the Quarters and the World No. 2 Yamaguchi in the Semis.

Discomfort? No Problem.

In the round-of-8, Daren Liew of Malaysia experienced a mini-pain in the leg while returning the bird, in the mid-second game to the advantage of Tsuneyama from Japan. But without losing the confidence, the Malaysian cruised with sheer aggression that costed him into the Semis.

What Else with unseeds?

●     The thirteenth seed Michelle Li of Canada made an early exit in second round after losing to an unseed Thuy Linh Nguyen of Vietnam in the three sets match of 21-23, 21-12, 23-2.

●     Daren Liew’s consistency till Semi-Finals as an unseed

●     It took three games for the unseed Ygor Coelho of Brazil to trounce the 11th seed Indian Prannoy HS