BWF World Championship: Mitani in quarters for Saina

Minatsu Mitani

Aug 18, 2014 - Copenhagen, Denmark

16th seed Minatsu Mitani turned tables on last year's winner and hot favorite to win this time- fourth seed Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand in the women single's 3rd round of BWF World Championship being played at Copenhagen, Denmark.

This is the biggest upset of the women's singles draw till now in the tournament and might very well influence the final result of the tournament. Mitani prevailed over Intanon 8-21, 21-12, 21-18 in a very keenly fought match, which lasted an hour. The match started in an anticipated fashion with Intanon dominating Mitani to quickly wrap up the first game.

While it looked as if Intanon was going to walk over Mitani rather easily in the second game, Mitani had other ideas. Things changed completely in the game 2. Mitani started to call the shots and lead for the most part of the game over Intanon. With the change of court Mitani started attacking and Intanon went on the back foot.

However, Intanon is not a kind of player that can be dominated for long. She counter-attacked and scored a number of points in a flash and went on the lead from a trailing position. Hit by this flurry of point Mitani woke up and raised her tempo. She hit back hard took the game 21-12.

The decider was bitterly fought. The point tally was always within one point of each other. It is after the mid point when both players went for the kill. Mitani succeeded playing from the side she played the second game from. She notched up a number of points in a flash to take a three-point lead. Inton fought back to level things up but Mitani once again took the decisive lead after winning three straight points.

From here things went point by point, but the lead proved decisive. Intanon went down after fighting for an hour. The player to benefit the most from this win will be number 7 seed Saina Nehwal of India, who if can defeat Li Xuerui of China, something she has done before but is always a tough act, she will face much lesser opponents. Li Xuerui is the top dog in women singles and the biggest obstacle between her and a medal here. If she beats Xuerui, she will face the winner between 16th seed Minatsu Mitani and 5th seed Ji Hyun Sung.

She has a favorable record against both the players and has almost dominated them both. But in recent past when she had a loss of form, both players have registered wins over Saina. Yet, keeping in mind overall record Saina will be the favorite to reach the finals.