Thailand's Ratchanok Intanon wins BWF World Championships

Ratchanok Intanon from Thailand in action

Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand has defeated world No. 1 and top seeded Chinese Li Xuerui to lift the BWF World Championships 2013 women’s title at Tianhe Indoor Gymnasium, Guangzhou (China).

Intanon overcame strong opposition from the Chinese with authority.

The match had great intensity throughout, with both players scoring almost at the same pace, and each edging the other out with a point or two here and there. Scoring opened in the first set with Intanon taking a 2-0 lead, but the score kept swinging either way.

At the end of the set, Li Xuerui had a healthy 6 point lead and it seemed that she was going to win the game. But Intanon had other plans. She came from behind, racking up 5 straight points. But even that couldn’t stop Li Xuerui from earning a game point, and the score read 20-18. Once again, Intanon rose like a phoenix and sealed the game in her favour, saving two game points. She scored 4 points in a row to win the game 22-20.

Game two wasn’t much different, except that the fight was fiercer and Li Xuerui maintained her composure to not let the story of the previous game repeat. After the first game’s debacle, a lesser player would have simply surrendered, but not Li Xuerui. The second game wasn’t as one sided as it seemed it could turn out to be. Li Xuerui maintained her composure and took the game 21-18, something that should have been the case in the previous game as well.

The third game was an entirely different story. Intanon continued from where she had left in the first game, not second. She opened the scoring and fired up 5 straight points again to start with a 6-1 lead. Li Xuerui tried to put up a fight, picking up 1 or 2 points in succession here and there, but she had been completely outclassed.

Intanon maintain the lead throughout the game, ruling out any comeback from Li Xuerui completely. In the end, when she wrapped up the game 21-14, she had made Li Xuerui look very ordinary, despite the fact that some very high quality badminton was played by both players.

In my analysis yesterday, I had said these players are aggressive. And today, the more aggressive player won.

Clearly, in women’s badminton, rules are being rewritten. Players such as Ratchanok Intanon, Carolia Marin, P V Sindhu are the ones to watch in future. Good news for badminton!