Birmingham: Women’s singles No. 1 seed Tai Tzu-ying of Taiwan put on a show to beat Aya Ohori of Japan 21-12, 21-13 in the All England quarter-finals that lasted just 33 minutes on Friday.
Tai will take on Chen Fufei of China in the semi-finals. The Taiwanese holds a 6-0 career record against Chen, with her latest victory came at the 2018 Malaysia Masters in January 2018, where Tai defeated Chen 21-18, 21-15.
In other women’s singles quarter-finals, No. 2 seed Akane Yamaguchi was fast and was attacking Carolina Marin through the mid-court and front-court. Although Marin was trying to lift and to create openings for attacks, Yamaguchi’s defense was superb that she came from 14-17 in the second set to eventually see off the Rio Olympic champion Marin 21-15, 21-18.
Yamaguchi will take on PV Sindhu of India in the semi-finals.
PV Sindhu, however, exacted a sweet revenge on her loss to Nozomi Okuhara at last year’s world championships in Glasgow, coming back from 12-16 in the decider to beat Okuhara 20-22, 21-18, 21-18.
In women’s doubles, No. 5 seeds Shiho Tanaka/Koharu Yonemoto of Japan will play compatriots and No. 4 seeds Yuki Fukushima/Sayaka Hirota while No. 3 seeds Kamilla Rytter Juhl/Christinna Pedersen of Denmark will take on unseeded Mayu Matsumoto/Wakana Nagahara of Japan in another semi-finals.