Ratchanok fights back from 11-18 to stun Olympic champion at All England
Ratchanok Intanon won 10 straight points in the decisive game to upset world No 2 Carolina Marin of SPain in the All England OPen in Birmingham on Friday.
The former world No 1 Ratchanok was trailing the Rio Games gold medalist 11-18 in the final game before she summoned her top form to reel off the next 10 points to beat the rival 22-20, 13-21, 21-18, aveging the loss at this same satge 12 months ago.
Marin had not won a World Super Series event since before her Rio triumph, and although she vowed to rectify that by winning the title this week, she slid from within sight of victory to an improbable defeat.
Marin landed a variety of heavy smashes, sliced, round-the-head, and cannonball flat, which looked to be overwhelming the defences of her young rival.
But the Thai then started to take the attacking initiative away from the aggressive Spaniard, landing three good blows herself and suddenly generating some momentum.
Surprisingly Marin was unable to wrest it back, and at 18-16 was spoken to by the umpire, apparently for something she said.
By that stage she had begun taking risks to get the elusive last three points, but this resulted in a mid-court jab into the net and a kill into the net, followed by a stunning defeat when she cleared the shuttle long.
"I was in control of the match at 18-11 but I lost focus," Marin reckoned.
"My opponent rushed me and I can't understand why I lost it."
Ratchanok next plays a surprise semi-finalist, Akane Yamaguchi of Japan, whose 21-23, 21-14, 22-20 victory over the fourth-seeded Sun Yu ended the Chinese bid to regain a women's singles title they have dominated for a large part of two decades.
Earlier Tai Tzu Ying, the top-seeded World Super Series winner from Taiwan, reached the semi-final with an impressive 21-14, 21-10 win over Pusarla Sindhu, the Olympic siler medallist from India.
After trailing 5-9 in the first game, Tai found ways of taming the Sindhu smash which was timed at 223 mph at last year's All-England.
"I tried to find loopholes in her attack," Tai explained.
Sindhu's Olympic final with Marin set TV viewing records, and was watched by 17 million viewers in India, and utterly changed her life, bringing the rewards of cars, land and a government job and a million and a half pounds worth of cash.
Now however the chance of glory at the world's oldest tournament slipped rapidly away.
It meant that both leading Indian players had gone out. Earlier Saina Nehwal was narrowly beaten 22-20, 22-20 by Sung Ji-hyun of Korea after leading 17-12 in the first game. Sung now plays Tai.
In the men's singles Chou Tien Chen dashed the hope of Thai ace Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk by winning the quarter-final match 21-19 16-21 21-8.
