Canada: The reigning Commonwealth Games and Pan Am Games gold medalist in women’s singles, Michelle Li, made it to the Pan Am Games semi-finals in both women’s singles and women’s doubles categories on Monday.
Playing in front of big crowds, the top seed Michelle Li handed No. 6-seed Lohaynny Vicente of Brazil a straight-set 21-7, 21-18 defeat in the last 8. She will take on USA player Jamie Subandhi on Tuesday.
Li has also thrived in women’s doubles with her partner, Rachel Honderich. The dynamic duo used their speed advantage to trounce their Mexican opponents Cynthia Gonzalez/Haramara Gaitan 21-11, 21-9 in the quarter-finals. The pair will face defending champions Eva Lee/Paula Lynn Obanana of USA in a dream semifinal on Tuesday.
If everything is going according to plan, Li is expecting to collide with her partner, Rachel Honderich in Thursday’s women’s singles gold medal match. Rachel Honderich, who also seeded fourth in the women’s singles, eased past No. 5 seed Brazilian player Fabiana Silva 21-16, 21-10 to set up a clash with Iris Wang of USA in the semi-finals.
Interestingly, the 23-year-old Michelle Li who was born in Hong Kong and now lives only 10-minutes away from the Atos Markham Centre, where the tournament is being held, chose to stay in hotel instead of driving there from home during the tournament.
“Staying in a hotel allows me to get into tournament mode,” said Li.
When asked about her preparation on the 2016 Rio Olympics, Li who finished fourth in women’s doubles together with Alex Bruce at the 2012 Summer Olympics (after the top two teams in their group were disqualified for attempting to intentionally lose matches so they would have an easier match-up in the quarterfinals), said she will be focusing on women’s singles at Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
“I’m aiming for the women’s singles medal at Rio. I’ll be very exciting to make it to the medal round through my own effort,” added Li.
