On the evening of August 26, Beijing time, the semifinals of the women's singles of the 2023 Danish Badminton World Championships ended. Olympic champion Chen Yufei, who reached the semifinals, lost 2-0 against her old rival Ahn Chuying of South Korea, who advanced to the final to face Spain's veteran Marin for the women's singles title at the World Championships. And Chen Yufei's loss also means that the national women's singles will continue the embarrassment of 12 years without a World Championship, and the last time they won the World Championship event was back to Wang Yihan in 2011.
Chen Yufei and An Qianying are very familiar with each other, and the two sides have met many times in international competitions at various levels. Before this match, the overall head-to-head result between the two sides was Chen Yufei's 10-5 advantage. However, most of Chen Yufei's victories came in the initial meeting between the two, Chen Yufei once completely dominated with 7-0, after all, there was a four-year age difference between the two in debut. But in the past two years, An Zhiying has gradually reversed the disadvantage of fighting with Chen Yufei, and has also become the world's No. 1 in women's singles.
This year, the two sides have met six times, with Ahn winning 4-2, and the last time the two met was in the semifinals of last month's Korea Open, where Chen Yufei lost 2-1. Compared with Chen Yufei's relatively dismal results this season, An Zhiying has won the BWF Tour 7 times, ranking first in the total prize money, beating all male and female players, and has a proud record, she is not only the strongest opponent of the national badminton women's singles in the Paris Olympic cycle, but also the 21-year-old South Korean girl has become the favorite to win the women's singles title at next year's Olympic Games.
In the first game between the two, An Zhiying took the initiative, and Chen Yufei did not slow down until the middle game, patiently maneuvered with her opponent, and at one point scored five consecutive points to tie the score when trailing 11-16. Unfortunately, at the end of the game, Chen Yufei still failed to grasp the timing and lost 19-21. In the second game, the scores of the two sides were glued and there was a lead for each other, and Chen Yufei was not without hope of equalizing the big score. But also at the end of the game, Chen Yufei seemed to lack confidence, excessive physical consumption led to deformation of technical movements, continuous errors in judgment, and lost again 15-21, and was blocked from the final by a big score of 0-2.
This match can be said that Chen Yufei has tried her best, but the overall feeling is that An Zhiying is younger, has greater potential, and has higher room for improvement than Chen Yufei, I am afraid that in the future confrontation, An Zhiying's self-confidence will be stronger, and the national women's singles players, including Chen Yufei, will be difficult to beat the Korean athlete in a short time.
Of the five individual events, the furthest away from the world champion is women's singles, the last time they won the title was Wang Yihan in 2011, 12 years ago. This time in Denmark, they also failed to fulfill their desire to regain the women's singles title.
Text/Beiqing Sports Liu Ailin