Marin on the verge of early exit at Dubai World Superseries finals

Sport360 staff 18:34 11/12/2015
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  • Early exit: Carolina Marin.

    Carolina Marin, the world champion, the BWF player of the year, and the favourite to win the Super Series finals for the first time, was pushed to the edge of the exit on Friday after a second surprising defeat in two days.

    The Spaniard’s 21-9, 21-15 loss to the half-overlooked but highly mobile Japanese player Nozomi Okuhara left Marin’s survival depending on Taiwan’s Tai Tzu Ying achieving an improbable first win of the week against former world number one Saina Nehwal.

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    And yet Marin’s debut in the tour’s flagship event started satisfactorily two days ago with a tidy victory over Tai.

    It went very oddly wrong however when she missed a game point in the first game yesterday against Nehwal, her far-from-fit predecessor as number one, and slid to a defeat that sounded as though it was as unexpected to her opponent as to anyone else.

    It soon became even worse today against Okuhara, who took the lead straight away, dominated the first game, resisted Marin’s fightback from a four-point deficit to 11-11, and finished as confidently as if she had expected this outcome all along.

    Certainly in the slow conditions the result was less of a surprise than it seemed. Marin’s formidable smash hardly ever found the floor, and after one long rally which she nearly won several times but somehow never quite did she ended flat on her back on the floor.

    That dramatic moment, at 13-11, also seemed significant.

    The Spaniard’s point-winning screams of celebration grew fewer while Okuhara’s movements became ever quicker and, after completing her third win of the week to become an unexpected semi-finalist, Okuhara claimed she expected to play even better.

    But there was a wait of several hours before that probability, along with Nehwal’s fate, could be confirmed.

    A few moments later Ratchanok Intanon joined Okuhara in the semi-finals.

    The former world champion from Thailand was able to create many more openings than Marin had, and enterprisingly squeezed out a 21-14, 21-19 win against Wang Shixian, the former world number one from China.

    The other Chinese player, Wang Yihan, the former world champion, had already qualified in this group, with two tough three-game wins, one of which was against her compatriot, the other Wang. 

    The best known Chinese player here, the defending champion Chen Long, completed an unbeaten three-match sequence in his group with a 21-14, 21-17 win over Jan Jorgensen, the world number two from Denmark.

    Both had already qualified for the semi-finals and according to Chen “enjoyed themselves out there.”

    That did not however prevent him from accelerating impressively from a 10-13 deficit to win the first game, and producing another well-timed surge of five points out of six in the middle of the second game to ensure control of the match. He looks an odds on favourite.

    Earlier the tournament saw the premature exit of one famous player, but in the process lost two pairs of Olympic champions, when Zhao Yunlei withdrew with a knee injury.

    Zhao, a winner gold medals in women’s and mixed doubles at the 2012 London Olympics, had struggled through four matches in the two doubles events with her partners Tian Qing in the women’s and Zhang Na, before deciding to call it off for the week after two wins and two defeats.

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