A contender for Paris 2024: Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying posing with her prizes after beating Spain’s Carolina Marin to win the World Tour Finals women’s singles title in Hangzhou on Dec 17. — AFP
PETALING JAYA: Taiwanese shuttler Tai Tzu-ying announced herself as a contender to win gold in the women’s singles in the 2024 Paris Olympics after her stunning show in the season-ending World Tour Finals.
The 2020 Tokyo Games silver medallist did not have her best year but proved that she is still one of the top players in the world by superbly capturing the title in Hangzhou a week ago.
World No. 4 Tzu-ying, who only won the Asian Championships and Taiwan Open titles prior to the Finals, is now set to challenge for the gold in Paris along with China’s defending champion Chen Yufei, South Korea’s reigning world champion An Se-young, Japan’s world No. 3 Akane Yamaguchi and Spain’s world No. 5 Carolina Marin.
The 29-year-old will have extra motivation to win the title as she has already stated her intention to retire from the sport after the Olympics.
Tzu-ying has vowed to stay focused ahead of the showpiece event.
“There is still a long time to go before the Olympics and I will stay focused on my preparations,” said Tzu-ying in an interview with the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
“I want to use each upcoming tournament as a chance to learn and improve.
“My top priority is to maintain good health ahead of the Olympics.”
Tzu-ying will be out to get her year off to a good start by performing well in the season’s curtain raiser, the World Tour Super 1000 Malaysian Open from Jan 9-14 in Bukit Jalil.
She will open her campaign against Zhang Beiwen of the United States and could face world No. 2 Yufei in the last four if both justify their respective seedings.
Meanwhile, world No. 1 Se-young will play Denmark’s Line Kjaersfeldt in the first round and could meet Yamaguchi in the semi-finals.
Marin, who finished runners-up to Tzu-ying in the Tour Finals, has a tricky opening round match against China’s world No. 17 Zhang Yiman.
