Odense: Thailand’s unseeded Ratchanok Intanon held off World No.1 Tau Tzu Ying of Taiwan in a grueling three-set thriller, defeating the Taiwanese shuttler 21-14, 20-22, 21-14 on Saturday to reach the final of the US$750,000 Denmark Open badminton tournament.
Awaiting Intanon in the final is Japan’s No. 4 seed Akane Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi was forced to dig deep before prevailing in three sets 10-21, 21-18, 21-19 versus Chinese player Chen Yufei.
In the women’s doubles draw, unseeded Lee So Hee/Shin Seung Chan of Korea put up a spirited fight to topple No. 7 seeds Chang Ye Na/Jung Kyung Eun 21-9, 22-20 in 38 minutes.
Lee/Shin are set to face No. 6 seeds Shiho Tanaka/Koharu Yonemoto of Japan on Sunday.
In mixed doubles semi-finals, Malaysia’s Goh Soon Huat/Shevon Jemie Lai saw their three match winning streak stopped on Saturday following a 16-21, 16-21 defeat at the hands of No. 1 seeds Zheng Siwei/Chen Qingchen of China.
Zheng/Chen will meet No. 8 seeds Tang Chun Man/Tse Ying Suet of Hong Kong after the Hong Kong pair pulled off an upset to beat No. 3 seeds and Rio Olympic champions Tontowi Ahmad/Liliyana Natsir 21-16, 21-18 in 33 minutes.
