Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday won her fourth BWF World Tour Finals title, beating Spain’s Carolina Marin 12-21, 21-14, 21-18 in the women’s singles final in Hangzhou, China.
Tai is now tied with retired Chinese shuttler Li Lingwei for the second-most women’s singles Finals titles, behind Indonesia’s Susi Susanti.
While Tai, competing in a record-equaling 10th Finals, earned the first point in the opening seconds of their first game, Marin quickly took the lead, forcing Tai to fight hard in the closely matched final.
Photo: AFP
World No. 4 Tai and world No. 5 Marin were tied in head-to-head showdowns before the tournament, both having won 11 of their previous 22 matches against each other since 2014. The Spaniard most recently topped the Taiwanese shuttler 19-21, 21-15, 21-18 at the Victor Denmark Open in October, while Tai beat Marin 21-17, 10-21, 21-19 at the Victor China Open the month before that.
It was clear early on that yesterday’s match would be no different. After scoring tit-for-tat points in the opening moments of the first game, Marin went on a streak, taking an 18-9 lead, before winning 21-12.
While Tai seemed to thrive on making a comeback in the semi-final, she struggled against Marin.
Photo: AFP
It was a close replay of their 2020 Finals match, when Tai last won the title after shaking off a first-game loss and beat Marin 14-21, 21-8, 21-19.
This time was harder. Marin continued to match Tai for nearly every point earned in the second game, until Tai went on a six-point streak to take and widen her lead to 15-11. That seemed to give her enough confidence to win the game 21-14.
In the final game, the two continued to match nearly every point, with Marin determined to win her first Finals title, or at least not give it up without a fight. The battle broke with Tai racking up six straight points to take a 19-13 lead. While the Spaniard got closer to evening the score, the Taiwanese held her ground to take the match 21-18.
On Saturday, Tai made a stunning comeback against world No. 1 An Se-young in their semi-final. The South Korean had beaten the Taiwanese in 10 of their previous 12 matches, including the day before.
In their final game, Tai avoided a seventh straight loss, rising from a nine-point deficit to win 19-21, 21-15, 22-20.
“I don’t remember the last time I made such a comeback,” Tai told the BWF Web site. “I can only remember my opponents catching up with me from a huge gap. Maybe my opponents can remember the matches where I caught up with them from a big gap.”
In April Tai announced that she would retire next year.
In yesterday’s first match, South Korea’s Kang Min-hyuk and Seo Seung-jae beat China’s Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang 21-17, 22-20 in 43 minutes to win the men’s doubles title.
In the women’s doubles, China’s Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan dominated South Korea’s Baek Ha-na and Lee So-hee 21-16, 21-16.
In the mixed doubles final, China’s Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong beat out compatriots Feng Yanzhe and Huang Dongping 21-11, 21-18.
The final match of the day, the men’s singles final, saw world No. 1 Viktor Axelsen of Denmark beat world No. 7 Shi Yuqi of China 21-11, 21-12.
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS