China's Wang Yihan showed she is ready to return to the top spot when she captured her first Djarum Indonesia Open Superseries Premier title on Sunday.
The former world No. 1, who has since dropped to No. 3 in the world, overcame a first game hiccup against two-time defending champion Saina Nehwal of India to register a hard-fought 12-21, 23-21, 21-14 victory to deny the Commonwealth Games champion a chance to win her third straight crown in Jakarta. It was a stunning performance from Wang Yihan, who faced match point in the second game, only to come back and win her 10th career Superseries title and maintain her winning record against Saina.
The two former world junior champions first faced each other in the 2006 World Junior Championships while their only other meeting on the senior stage was at last year's Uber Cup, which Wang Yihan also won in three games.
Saina, who has only won one tournament this season - Wilson Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold - has had a rather inconsistent year and struggled in the last two OSIM BWF World Superseries tournaments, losing in the first round in India and second round in Singapore last week.
After taking the first game quite comfortably, where her deft touches and clever placements left Wang Yihan flatfooted, Saina, as so often this year, let slip the momentum. Wang Yihan came charging back to lead 16-12 in the second, only for Saina to recover to serve for match at 20-19 but she sent a return long and Wang Yihan took advantage to win the game 23-21.
Her recovery boosted Wang Yihan's confidence and she began to dominate the match and eventually took the third game to main her record of winning every OSIM BWF World Superseries Premier tournament she has entered.
The Badminton Asia Championship winner won the inaugural Superseries Premier event in South Korea but missed the All England through injury. "I feel lucky to have won here in Indonesia. It was a tiring tournament and today's match was very difficult," said Wang Yihan.
Source : Badminton World Federation
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