Top 5 women’s badminton players in 2017

#4 Nozomi Okuhara

BWF Dubai World Superseries Finals - Day 5 — Nozomi Okuhara

It’s a pity that a knee injury curbed Nozomi Okuhara’s progress in the latter half of the year and sent her back to the sidelines. We would never know what she could have done had she played, for a fit Okuhara pretty much had the entire world at her feet right before that!

The Japanese simply destroyed the field at the World Championships and the Australian Open, notching up wins over Akane Yamaguchi, Carolina Marin and PV Sindhu. Six of her matches at those two tournaments went the distance, culminating in an enthralling World Championships final against Sindhu, which left the badminton fandom spellbound.

The 22-year-old also made it to the final of the Korea Open and the semi-finals of the Japan Open, where injury got the better of her.

About the author

Sudeshna is a veteran Indian Sports and International Tennis journalist as well as editor at Sportskeeda. She has an overall experience of over 10 years with top publications like The Bridge, Fox Sports Asia, and gained a keen interest in Indian sports since the 2002 Commonwealth and Asian Games when she was in school.

Sudeshna holds a Master's degree in Journalism and Mass Communication. She attends tournaments regularly and being a highly experienced journalist, she ensures she only contacts the correct people from her network for the most authentic information to be put in her articles.

Sudeshna’s favorite Indian athlete is PV Sindhu owing to her big-tournament performances. She also admires Tennis legend Rafael Nadal for his resilience and has witnessed the Spaniard in action at the French Open, due to which, Roland Garros is her all-time favorite Grand Slam tournament.

Neeraj Chopra’s gold medal win at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics made a lasting impact on Sudeshna. She has also interviewed him along with Badminton star Chirag Shetty and several other sports personalities. She has done on-ground reporting on multiple ITF tournaments along with the Premier Badminton League, Asian Boxing Championships and the Davis Cup.

When not using her skills and years of experience in crafting compelling content, Sudeshna likes to read, watch movies and travel.

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Edited by Sudeshna Banerjee