Wang Zhiyi’s 21-15, 21-19 victory over badminton’s unofficial juggernaut, World another 1 An Se-young, completed a year of eternally trying to beat the best women’s singles shuttler.
The Chinese and the Korean had played out a stunning All England final last year, but Zhiyi had suffered confidence-sapping losses thereafter as Se-young continued to roll over all her opponents.
Even the Chinese National Games had become an occasion to taunt Zhiyi about how she might win, but only because Se-young wasn’t across the court. But the Chinese persisted.
Every Federer needs a Nadal, and it is important for womens badminton – at its weakest in years – that Se-young finds a challenger who can push her. Losing 10 finals wasn’t very inspiring. But since last year’s entertaining All England final, the Chinese hadn’t stopped trying to crack the An Se-young puzzle.
Significantly, Wang Zhiyi had lost the German Open Finals to her junior Han Qian Xi. A lucky break did fetch up when her nemesis PV Sindhu of India got stuck at the Dubai airport, caught in the mental West India missile attacks, before heading home to Bangalore. But the Korean had turned up like clockwork and was threatening to ruin Zhiyi’s Sunday once again.
While Akane Yamaguchi had done her share of making life difficult for Zhiyi, her Chinese senior Chen Yufei provided a much needed assist, when she casually ate up 73 minutes of ASY’s energies with her typical crunching badminton in a three setter in semis. That was a 22-20 tease, before the Korean took the next two 9, 12.
In the finals, Zhiyi would need 59 minutes with impeccable retrieving and the sort of stubbornness needed in the face of a dominant player like ASY.
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“I didn’t dwell over the loss from last week’s final; there are positive experiences that I can learn from,” Wang told BWF. “I think it’s more important to keep building on the things that worked well instead of focusing on the negatives.”
Her marxch to the final took in Supanida Katethong, a 3 setter with Tomoka Miyazaki in three, and finally the Yamaguchi inquisition in semis.
“I played three tough games against Miyazaki and in the semifinals I was leading the second game and then she (Yamaguchi) caught up at 19. There were many tough moments, but I managed to stay focused on how to play the next point instead of thinking about the previous point,” Wang told BWF.
The Korean had been looking a little off colour, with her accuracy. But it still had taken a year of absorbing trolling and criticism from her unforgiving home media, before Zhiyi nicked one her way.
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The defense was Sen-sque, and Zhiyi, a mild mannered Chinese who suddenly finds herself having to defend the Chinese reputation in an era of a near-unbeatable Korean (they are bitter rivals, the two countries), has had to level up to beat Se-young who doesn’t have an inferior H2H record against any present player. An leads Zhiyi 18-5. Until All E Sunday happened.
“It was a very difficult match,” Zhiyi told BWF. “I just focussed on my strategy and played with patience. We had a lot of long rallies, so I had to be patient and keep moving.”
She had worked on staying strong till end of long rallies, and not dwelling I the past, like Dumbledore would say.
“Mentality was one of the key points that I changed today. In past matches, I couldn’t last to the end of long rallies, but today I could. This is one of the significant things that led to this result. I would want to learn from this for the future. There were occasions previously when I had match points and went on to lose. But today I didn’t think about the past matches, I just focussed on each point on court,” she said of her changed mindset.
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She had worked on accentuating what worked against Se-young rather than stew in the negs. “I had a more targeted game plan this time. I took some positives and lessons from our previous matches. I focused on the trajectory of my shots and was very patient, especially during long rallies. Today, I was not bothered by our previous head-to-head record. I treated this as a new match. Every time I played her, I tried to challenge her. I hope each time I play I can perform better than the last match,” she told BWF.
“I’m super excited and I feel like a dream came true. Honestly, I still can’t believe I won the match. I’m really really happy.”
