Olympic champion Chen reaches women's singles final at badminton worlds

TOKYO -- Olympic champion Chen Yufei of China fought back from one set down to beat second seed Tai Tzu-ying of Chinese Taipei and reach the women's singles final at the World Badminton Championships here on Saturday.

The match was a repeat of the Tokyo Olympic final last year when Chen defeated Tai in a three-set thriller to win the gold medal.

Saturday's match proved to be more difficult. Chen found herself slump to 10-2 behind and drop the first set 21-15, but recovered quickly in the second set and gained full control, winning 21-14.

Chen took a commanding 20-12 lead in the decider and looked to be heading to an easy victory. But Tai, who also finished second at last year's worlds, refused to throw in the towel, saving six match points to claw back to 20-18.

Chen, who had been knocked out by India's Pusaria V. Sindhu at both semifinals in 2017 and 2019, did not make any further mistakes by sealing the match at 21-18.

"It was tough," Chen said afterwards. "I was too cautious at the final moments."

The 24-year-old has improved her record to seven wins and 17 losses against Tai. Since Chen's victory in last year's Olympics, the pair have met four times and won twice each.

"I have improved a lot in the past year," Chen said. "The most important thing is that I am more powerful physically."

For Team China, Chen has become the first player in eight years to secure a berth in the women's singles final and is also hopeful of becoming the first women's world champion in 11 years.

"Everybody is talking about how much Team China needs a women's world champion because we have not won it for 11 years," Chen said. "That is an invisible pressure for me. I hope to achieve that goal, but first of all, I just want to try my best in the next match."