TOKYO: Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi retained her badminton girls’s international identify in entrance of her house crowd in Tokyo on Sunday, beating China’s Chen Yufei 21-12, 10-21, 21-14. The highest-seeded Yamaguchi, who received her first international identify final 12 months within the Spanish town of Huelva, needed to dig deep to peer off the problem of Olympic champion Chen. Chen was once bidding to develop into the primary participant from badminton powerhouse China to win a girls’s singles international identify since 2011.
China has received a complete of 15 girls’s singles international titles-five occasions greater than some other country-but quantity 4 seed Chen was once the country’s first girls’s international finalist since 2014. The 25-year-old Yamaguchi cruised via to the general with out losing a recreation this week in Tokyo. She regularly grew to become the screw on Chen within the first recreation prior to sealing the maintain a no-nonsense spoil.
Chen got here roaring again in the second one recreation and leveled the fit when Yamaguchi swatted a go back into the online. Yamaguchi regained the higher hand with a large early lead within the 3rd recreation and she or he made it stick, ultimate out the fit when Chen hit a go back into the online.
The win gave Yamaguchi her 2nd identify of the 12 months, after lifting the trophy on the All England Open in March. The ladies’s singles festival at this 12 months’s worlds was once hit by way of harm, with 2019 champion PV Sindhu of India and Japan’s 2017 winner Nozomi Okuhara each pulling out at the eve of the match.
Axelsen wins
Within the males’s ultimate, Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen received his 2nd badminton international identify on Sunday, beating Thailand’s Kunlavut Vitidsarn 21-5, 21-16 within the ultimate in Tokyo. International primary Axelsen has misplaced just one singles fit this season and was once an excessive amount of for 21-year-old emerging celebrity Vitidsarn, who was once blown away within the first recreation. Axelsen, who received Olympic gold final 12 months, additionally claimed the arena identify in Glasgow in 2017. The 28-year-old Dane has been in imperious shape this week in Tokyo, achieving the general with out shedding a unmarried recreation. He took keep an eye on proper from the beginning in opposition to a shell-shocked Vitidsarn and clinched the primary recreation with a commanding spoil.
Vitidsarn made extra of a competition of the second one recreation but it surely was once nonetheless now not sufficient to prevent Axelsen, who raised each fingers and lay on his again after Vitidsarn’s ultimate shot went lengthy. The win gave Axelsen his 6th identify of the season. International quantity 17 Vitidsarn was once taking part in in his first international championships ultimate, having knocked out Singapore’s protecting champion Loh Kean Yew within the quarter-finals. Vitidsarn, a three-time junior international champion, was once bidding to develop into Thailand’s first-ever senior males’s singles international champion. – AFP