On December 18, the Badminton World Championships reached the semi-finals in Huelva, Spain, and in the women's singles lower half of the duel, Guoyu's Zhang Yiman Challenge will be the No. 2 seed, Japan's Akane Yamaguchi. Zhang Yiman, who lacked experience in the final competition, although he played a good performance, but in the end he lost with two 19-21, a big score of 0-2, and did not qualify for the final. At this point, Guoyu's He Bingjiao and Zhang Yiman both lost in the semi-finals and missed the women's singles final of this year's World Championships, and Dai Ziying and Akane Yamaguchi competed for the final championship.
The 24-year-old Zhang Yiman, an echelon athlete in the national women's singles, did not have a brilliant performance in the world championships before, and the world ranking is now only 46th This year's World Championships is the first time in his career to play in the World Championships with the opportunity to make up for it. Because the ranking is too low, Zhang Yiman needs to start from the first round.
The first match was against Zhang Yanyi of Hong Kong, China, and won 21-10, 21-13 to advance smoothly. In the second round, because Japan's Okuhara hoped to retire due to injury, Zhang Yiman automatically advanced to the round of 16 without a fight. In the third round, he met with the 16th seed, South Korea's Kim Jae-eun, and Zhang Yiman won two consecutive sets 21-16, 21-19 to advance to the quarterfinals. In the quarter-finals, he met with Thailand's first sister and past champion Indanon Ratchano, and in the case of losing one set first, he won two consecutive sets and advanced to the top 4, with a score of 13-21, 21-13, 21-15.
Zhang Yiman's opponent Akane Yamaguchi is one of the twin stars who have grown rapidly in the Japanese badminton women's singles in recent years, because of Okuhara's continued injury troubles, Yamaguchi Akane more often bears the banner of carrying a Japanese sister. After the Tokyo Olympics, Akane Yamaguchi competed in several international competitions like a machine and achieved good results. But continuous high-intensity conquests also made her tired and injured at one point. At the World Championships, she played as the No. 2 seed, the first round of bye, the second round 21-13, 21-15 victory over Denmark's Lane, the third round of 21-15, 21-18 victory over teammate Takahashi Shayaga, 1/4 final three sets of fierce battle once again beat the Korean genius girl An Xianying, advanced to the top 4, will be Zhang Yiman.
Previously, Zhang Yiman had never played with Akane Yamaguchi, so the semi-final of this World Championship was the first time the two had met. In the first set, Akane Yamaguchi was always in the lead, but was equalized by Zhang Yiman three times in the middle, and finally even when Akane Yamaguchi won the set point 20-17, she still stubbornly scored two consecutive points, unfortunately, she lost the first set 19-21 first. In the second set, the two were completely in a standoff in the first half, and the scores have been alternately led, and Zhang Yiman led 11-10 into the intermission. After restarting, Zhang Yiman seized several offensive opportunities to widen the score gap and led 17-13 at one point, but then Akane Yamaguchi scored four consecutive points to chase down to 17 draws. At the critical moment, Zhang Yiman failed to withstand the pressure, and in the case of a 19-18 lead, he was scored 3 points by Akane Yamaguchi, and finally lost the second set 19-21, losing 0-2 with a big score, regrettably missing the final.