On December 18, Beijing time, the 2021 Badminton World Championships ended the second women's singles semifinal in Spain, and Zhang Yiman of the Chinese team lost 0-2 to Japan's Akane Yamaguchi and missed the final. Akane Yamaguchi will compete with Dai Ziying for the women's singles title.
The national women's singles sent four players to participate this time, and Olympic champion Chen Yufei did not go out with the team. Among the four, Zhang Yiman's world ranking is the lowest, only 46th, which makes her have no performance pressure, and she only needs to let go and fight on the field. In the first round, Zhang Yiman eliminated Zhang Yanyi of Hong Kong, China, and in the second round, benefiting from the retirement of No. 3 seed Okuhara Hope, she entered the third round without a fight.
In the next two rounds of matches, Zhang Yiman played against seeded players in a row, and as a result, she first eliminated South Korea's Kim Jia-eun, and in the quarter-final reversal defeated Thailand's Indanong. The elimination of Indanon brought more confidence to Zhang Yiman, who proved that she had the ability to compete with the world's top masters. In the semifinals, Zhang Yiman met the No. 2 seed Akane Yamaguchi, which was the first time the two had met.
After the start of the match, Akane Yamaguchi played aggressively and quickly led 3-1. Zhang Yiman chased 2 points in a row to equalize, Yamaguchi Akane responded with 3 points to pull away again, Zhang Yiman was very tenacious and quick to equalize. Akane Yamaguchi used the drop point change to mobilize Zhang Yiman, and she hit a new scoring climax to pull away from the lead again. Zhang Yiman, who was behind the score, was very tenacious, and she worked hard to narrow the gap and successfully chased to 15 draws. Akane Yamaguchi was more sophisticated in handling key balls, winning two consecutive points to re-open and take the lead 20-17 to get the set point. Zhang Yiman, who let go, saved two innings in a row, but unfortunately, in the end, she still failed, 21-19, and Akane Yamaguchi won one set first.
In the second set, the two competed more fiercely, with consecutive draws on the field, from 3 draws to 11 draws. Zhang Yiman seized the opportunity to score 3 points in a row to lead the way, and Akane Yamaguchi tried to counterattack, but Zhang Yiman responded to maintain the lead. However, after the score became 17-13, Zhang Yiman was in a hurry, and the number of active mistakes increased, and Yamaguchi took the opportunity to chase 4 points in a row to equalize again.
Zhang Yiman calmly fought back and took another 1 point to lead again 19-18. Unfortunately, at this critical moment, Zhang Yiman's active mistakes were slightly more, and Akane Yamaguchi scored 2 consecutive points to win the match point 20-19. As Zhang Yiman split the diagonal out of bounds, 21-19, Akane Yamaguchi won the second set to advance to the final with a 2-0 victory.
Akane Yamaguchi will compete with Dai Ziying for the women's singles title. Zhang Yiman regrets not being able to make it to the final, but for her, breaking into the final four of the World Championships is already a very good result, and this world championship trip will bring her more confidence, and her future is worth looking forward to.