Glasgow: The No. 7 seed Nozomi Okuhara of Japan and No. 4 seed P.V. Sindhu were both playing for history and were playing the match of their life in the women’s singles final of the World Badminton Championships at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland on Sunday. It was an epic battle, and it was also the longest women’s singles match ever recorded, which lasted for 110 minutes!
On and on both Okuhara and Sindhu dueled, they were trying to win a history-making first ever World Championships for their country. The epic match — the third set alone lasted 46 minutes, gave Nozomi Okuhara her first World Championships title with a 21-19, 20-22, 22-20 triumph against P.V. Sindhu.
Okuhara came from a 5-11 deficit in the first set to overcome Sindhu 21-19 in a 25 minutes first set. The Japanese played the second set in similar manner where she fought back from 3-9 down to level the score at 20-20. However, Sindhu would not let the match slip through her fingers, she held on to beat Okuhara 22-20 in a 38 minutes second set encounter.
The third set was a nail-biter in which the score was tied 14-times before Sindhu failed to return Okuhara’s drop shot on her left side that allowed Okuhara to clinch the match point.
“I was very nervous when I was playing in Olympic, I would like to thanks the fans for their support and I am really exited that I played well today,” said the exhausted Okuhara.
In women’s doubles, No. 4 seeds Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan of China overcame a spirited effort from No. 9 seeds Yuki Fukushima/Sayaka Hirota to prevail 21-18, 17-21, 21-15 in 84 minutes. This was Chen/Jia’s first World Championships at the senior level, Chen/Jia have won the World Junior title twice in 2014 and 2015. The women’s doubles title was also China’s 14th consecutive women’s doubles World Championships title.
The longest badminton match was created by Japanese pair of Naoko Fukuman and Kurumi Yonao against Nitya Krishinda Maheswari and Greysia Polii of Indonesia during the women’s doubles semi-final at the Badminton Asia Championships in May 2016. The Japanese pair eventually defeated the Indonesians 13-21, 21-19, 24-22 in a staggering 161 minutes or 2 hours and 41 minutes.
