BADMINTON/Tai advances to badminton World Tour Finals semis despite loss to An

Taipei, Dec. 15 (CNA) Taiwan's badminton ace Tai Tzu-ying (戴資穎) advanced to the women's singles semifinals of the 2023 BWF World Tour Finals in Hangzhou, China despite losing to Korean world No. 1 An Se Young on Friday 21-17, 21-15.

Tai has had a difficult year by her standards, reaching only three finals, and had to pull out of the two tournaments she played in November with injuries.

She was hoping to finish the year on a high note in Hangzhou, but was nearly eliminated after her loss to An.

In the Tour Finals, the eight players in the women's singles were put into two preliminary round-robin groups of four, with the top two in each group advancing to the semifinals.

An and Tai finished with 2-1 records in the group, but An placed first because she won four of six sets she played while Tai won four of the seven she played.

After Tai lost in straight sets, however, she was in a precarious position.

A win by Kim Ga Eun of South Korea over Gregoria Mariska Tunjung of Indonesia in a later match would have sent Tai home and Kim, with a 2-1 record and a 5-2 or 5-3 edge in sets, would have advanced based on the tiebreaker.

Fortunately for Tai, Tunjung outlasted Kim 21-14, 20-22, 21-17 in 63 minutes, leaving both of them with 1-2 records in the group.

Tai could have avoided the drama earlier by beating An or losing to her in three sets, but that would have been a tall order against the world No. 1, to whom Tai had lost five times in a row in straight sets.

Friday's match ended the same way after 49 minutes, giving An a 10-2 record against Tai all-time.

In the upcoming semifinals, the 29-year-old Tai will face An again, or the winner of the match between Chinese world No. 2 Chen Yufei (陳雨菲) or Spanish world No. 5 Carolina Marin starting at 5 p.m. depending on the draw.

Neither Chen nor Marin would be easy opponents for Tai given their recent history.

Tai lost to Chen in their one match this year in the French Open final and had a 2-3 record against the Chinese player in 2022.

The Taiwanese is 1-3 against the Spaniard this year and 11-11 all-time.