In last week's Malaysia Badminton Open, although all five major events of the national team had players reach the finals, only Shi Yuchi won the championship trophy. This week, the national team's soldiers have embarked on the Super 750 event, the Indian Open. The third seed in the women's singles, Han Yue, welcomed her first appearance at this event on the second day of the main draw, facing off against the host country's player Malvika. In this match, Malvika, who held the home court advantage, posed a significant challenge to Han Yue. Fortunately, in the decisive game, Han Yue took advantage of her physical fitness and quickly gained the lead, eventually winning 2-1 and advancing to the women's singles round of 16!
[Match History]
Born in 2001, Malvika is currently ranked 27th in the world. Her personal style of play is very distinctive. Due to her height of only 1.6 meters, her speed and connection rate on the court are her advantages, and her proactive attacks also have strong aggressiveness, with a certain impact.
Moreover, in previous world championships, Malvika has faced Han Yue three times, with a record of 1 win and 2 losses, putting her at a disadvantage. Their most recent encounter was in last week's Malaysia Open, where Han Yue eliminated Malvika in the women's singles round of 1/8 in just 37 minutes with a big score of 2-0, showing that Han Yue has a clear advantage in terms of individual strength.
[Game Review]
The two players, who had just faced each other, launched an attack on the court without any testing after the start of this game. At the beginning of the game, Han Yue made more mistakes, allowing Malvika to take an early lead of 3-1. Fortunately, through several rounds of multi-shot exchanges, Han Yue quickly adapted to the venue and wind direction, using high-quality sliding shots to kill at the net, scoring 3 points in a row to overtake the score to 4-3. The two then entered a tug-of-war, chasing each other until they were tied at 9. At a critical moment, Malvika continuously seized the opportunity of Han Yue's push to the baseline not being in place, scoring 2 points in a row to enter the mid-game break at 11-9.
After returning to the court, in order not to let Malvika gain momentum in the cheers of the home fans, Han Yue directly used her four-way drop shot as a trump card, successfully overtaking the score to 20-18 at the end of the game. Unfortunately, at the decisive moment, consecutive mistakes allowed Malvika to score 4 points in a row, reversing the situation to win the first game 22-20.
In the second game, Han Yue showed aggression from the beginning, starting with a 5-0 lead over Malvika and ending the first half of the game with a lead of 11-6. Although after returning to the court, Malvika relied on fierce fighting to catch up to 15 level in the late stages of the game, Han Yue held on under pressure at the decisive moment and leveled the score at 21-16.
Han Yue, known as "Han Sanju," showed her physical advantage in the decisive game, using high-quality drop shots to limit her opponent and maximize the consumption of Malvika's physical energy, regaining a 3-0 lead. Despite the cheers of the home fans, Malvika once chased the score to 6-7, but Han Yue did not give her opponent the chance to reverse the situation, focusing on her counterattack and securing victory with a score of 21-11.
Five days later, Han Yue defeated India's post-00s player Malvika again in a world championship, achieving a good start in the women's singles of this event. It is hoped that as the competition progresses, Han Yue will be able to perform better and strive for satisfactory results.