Taiwan's badminton ace withdraws from World Tour Finals due to injury

Taipei, Dec. 14 (CNA) Taiwanese badminton ace Tai Tzu-ying (戴資穎) withdrew from the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour Finals in China after walking off with an injury on Friday.

Tai retired shortly after losing the first game to Japan's Akane Yamaguchi 17-21 in her third Group A match of women's singles played at the Tianhe Gymnasium in Guangzhou city.

She was on track to take home her third World Tour Finals title in China, following her successful victories in 2014 and 2016.

Tai did not reveal the nature of the injury or how it occurred.

She was 12-11 when she walked out of the second game of the match, which lasted 33 minutes.

Both players are even following their previous head-to-head games, with each winning seven of their 14 encounters.

Taiwan's Chou Tien-chen (周天成), meanwhile, has been ousted from the men's singles competitions with one win and two losses in the Group A.

Despite capturing his opening win against Indonesian Anthony Sinisuka Ginting with 17-21, 21-18, 21-18 on Wednesday, the World No. 3 Taiwanese consequently lost the following matches -- first to Son Wan Ho of South Korea with 21-18, 11-21, 14-21 on Thursday and then Shi Yuqi of China on Friday with 17-21, 19-21.

In another match, Taiwanese Chen Hung-ling (陳宏麟) and Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) managed to secure their spots in the quarterfinals that day by beating Mohammed Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia 13-21, 21-18, 21-14 in the men's doubles.

Their next match have yet to be announced, following completion of the Group A and B games later in the evening.

The BWF World Tour Finals, which is being held in Guangzhou until Dec. 16, is an annual badminton tournament staged at the end of the year, where players with the most points from that calendar year on the BWF World Tour compete for a total prize money of US$1.5 million.