Top 5 women’s badminton players in 2017

#4 Nozomi Okuhara

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.