Glasgow: The No. 7 seed Nozomi Okuhara endured a difficult start to the match, went down 12-21 after being broken in her opening set and was outplayed by No. 12 seed Saina Nehwal of India in the women’s singles semi-finals at BWF World Championships.
Eventually, the Okuhara overcame her bout of nerves, won the second set 21-17 and stormed on to win the decider 21-10 in comfortable fashion. Okuhara’s victory also made her the second Japanese player to ever enter the World Championships final.
Okuhara will take on P.V. Sindhu of India in the final.
In women’s doubles, Japan’s No. 1 seeds Misaki Matsutomo/Ayaka Takahashi suffered a shock exit from the BWF world championships in Glasgow as Chinese youngster former World junior champions Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan defeated the top seeds in the semi-finals.
Chen/Jia, seeded fourth, claimed the best win of their career with 21-17, 21-15 triumph over the Japanese pair in 55 minutes. They will meet another Japanese pair, the No. 9 seeds Yuki Fukushima/Sayaka Hirota in the final.
In mixed doubles, Olympic champions and No. 3 seeds Tontowi Ahmad/Liliyana Natsir of Indonesia, have no problem finding themselves in the right mentality for a straight-set 21-16, 21-13 win against No. 10 seeds Reginald Lee Chun Hei/Chau Hoi Wah of Hong Kong in 34 minutes. The Indonesian pair will play Chen Qingchen/Zheng Siwei of China on Sunday as they are bidding for their second World Championships title as a pair. Both Ahmad/Natsir have won the Word Championships mixed doubles world title in 2013.
