Ratchanok clinches world title hat-trick

The 16-year-old Thai outclassed Indonesia’s Elyzabeth Purwaningtyas 21-6 18-21 21-13 in 54 minutes in the girls’ singles final. She became the first player in history to register a hat-trick of victories in the world meet.

Ratchanok won her first world crown in 2009 in Malaysia and successfully retained her title last year in Mexico. This time, the top-seeded Thai received a first-round bye before kicking off her title defence with a 21-19 24-22 win over Japanese Aya Ohori in a hotly contested second-round match.

Returning to the court, she showed no mercy to Evgeniya Kosetskaya, crushing the Russian 21-9 21-2, before thrashing India’s Tanvi Lad 21-8 21-5.

In the quarter-finals, Ratchanok brushed off Canadian Christin Tsai 21-10 21-16 then went on to stun Japanese third seed Nozomi Okuhara 21-16 21-16 in the semi-final clash.

The final against Indonesian fifth seed Elyzabeth Purwaningtyas, who struggled past second seed Carolina Marin of Spain 23-21 17-21 21-18 in her semi-final, saw red-hot Ratchanok race away with the first game 21-6. The young Indonesian struck back to clinch the second 21-18 and set up a decider. Responding to the pressure, Ratchanok upped her tempo and consistency to win the shoot-out 21-13 and take the title.

Meanwhile, Malaysia won two titles in the world junior meet, with Zulfadli Zulkifli beating Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen 21-18 9-21 21-19 to take the boys’ singles crown and Nelson Heg and Teo Ee Yi sealing the boys’ doubles.

The girls’ doubles title went to South Koreans Lee So-hee and Shin Seung-chan. The mixed doubles’ crown was clinched by Indonesian pairing Alfian Eko Prasetya and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja.