Marin to face Se-young in final at the BWF World Championships

COPENHAGEN: Carolina Marin is one win away from a fourth women's singles title at the BWF World Championships after beating Yamaguchi Akane in the semi-finals on Saturday.

The Rio 2016 Olympic badminton gold medallist Marin defeated the two-time reigning world champion 23-21, 21-13 to reach the final in Copenhagen in which she will face top seed An Se-young.

"You know, I came here to reach one goal. We are on the way but it's not enough for me to play a final. I want to fight for a gold medal. I'm really happy with my performance today. I think it was really important to keep fighting until the end," said Marin after the match.

She led the head-to-head 8-7 going into this contest, and the first game was tight before Yamaguchi managed to open up a 16-12 lead.

Back came the Spanish left-hander to level at 19-19 before a powerful smash set up Yamaguchi's first game point. Marin saved it before creating one of her own with a fierce overhead, but left a punch clear from her oppo-nent which dropped on the line.

Then Yamaguchi went wide with a smash before sending another one long to hand Marin the opener 23-21 af-ter 29 minutes.

Marin was able to press home the initiative early in the second game, taking a 9-5 advantage before going into the break 11-6 in front.

Five years since her last world crown, and after a succession of serious knee injuries, Marin looked right back to her best as she continued to overpower the second seed.

Despite Yamaguchi showing flashes of inspiration, Marin's attacking onslaught was too great for the Japanese whose team looked distinctly worried.

And Marin closed out victory in 53 minutes, just about managing to hold back the tears after a wonderful per-formance.

The top seed An Se-young ousted reigning Olympic champion Chen Yufei 21-19, 21-15 in other semifinal.

An won the last seven points in succession to end the Republic of Korea's 30-year wait for a world women's sin-gles finalist.

She will hope to go one better than Bang Soo-hyun, who lost to Susi Susanti in the 1993 final in Birmingham, and become South Korea's first women's singles world champion. Agencies

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