NEW DELHI, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Alex Lanier beat Kodai Naraoka 21-11 21-11 to become the first French player to win a singles title in badminton’s World Championships on Sunday.
In the women’s singles final, reigning Olympic champion An Se-young outwitted defending world champion Akane Yamaguchi 21-17 21-14 to win her second world title.
Lanier took about 50 minutes to clinch victory in the men’s final as he outclassed Japan’s Naraoka, a former finalist.
The 21-year-old Frenchman controlled the rallies and pushed Naraoka across the court, before picking tight angles to smash onto the floor.
Lanier won the first game in just 23 minutes. An exhausted Naraoka, struggling with low shots, looked for winners from near the back boundary in the second game, but ended up hitting wide multiple times.
Naraoka failed to push back with drop shots as Lanier rightly anticipated the 25-year-old’s moves and hit back with smashes to wrap up the contest.
Earlier in the day, Thom Gicquel and Delphine Delrue became the first French pair to win a badminton world title after defeating top seeds Feng Yanzhe and Huang Dongping of China 22-20 19-21 21-15 in the mixed doubles final.
Lanier’s win tops off a year of French dominance, after Christo Popov’s World Tour Finals victory last year, and the French team’s triumph over Denmark to win the continental championships in February.
SOUTH KOREAN WOMEN DOMINATE
An tested three-time women’s singles world champion Yamaguchi with smashes near the sideline, as the two went toe to toe in the first game, with nothing to separate them at 17-17.
But the 24-year-old South Korean dug deep to win the next four points and seal the first game, before prevailing in some high-speed long rallies in the second game to clinch her second world title, having previously won it in 2023.
An now holds the women’s singles titles in the Olympics, world championships, Asian Games and the Asian championships simultaneously.
South Korea also triumphed in women’s doubles as Baek Ha-na and Lee So-hee, who swept past China’s Liu Shengshu and Tan Ning 21-15 21-15, becoming the country’s first world champions in the event in 31 years.
The championships wrapped up with Chinese pair Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang winning the men’s doubles title, beating Malaysia’s Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik 21-17 21-16.
(Reporting by Chiranjit Ojha and Suramya Kaushik in BengaluruEditing by Christian Radnedge)
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