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The 2017 season witnessed some sizzling smashes, exciting rallies and mind-boggling matches as the women shuttlers displayed some magic on the BWF Tour. India played an important role in producing some epics as PV Sindhu achieved her career-best year.
As the year ends, it is time to look back at five of the best performers of the season. Who made the cut in Sportskeeda’s top 5 list?
Find out here:
#5 Chen Yufei
If China is looking for their next women’s singles star, they have definitely got the answer. The kind of maturity and poise that the former world junior champion, Chen Yufei displayed at the age of 19, certainly bodes well for the future.
Most importantly, Yufei never looked overawed by the occasion when she took on some of the biggest names at the elite BWF tournaments. A look at her 2017 exploits will corroborate that. She had wins over the likes of PV Sindhu, Akane Yamaguchi, Ratchanok Intanon, Saina Nehwal and Sung Ji Hyun.
She did not win any title in 2017 but a prized bronze medal at the World Championships and a semi-final finish at the World Superseries Finals speak volumes of the immense talent that she has.
#4 Nozomi Okuhara
It’s a pity that a knee injury curbed Nozomi Okuhara’s progress in the latter half of the year and sent her back to the sidelines. We would never know what she could have done had she played, for a fit Okuhara pretty much had the entire world at her feet right before that!
The Japanese simply destroyed the field at the World Championships and the Australian Open, notching up wins over Akane Yamaguchi, Carolina Marin and PV Sindhu. Six of her matches at those two tournaments went the distance, culminating in an enthralling World Championships final against Sindhu, which left the badminton fandom spellbound.
The 22-year-old also made it to the final of the Korea Open and the semi-finals of the Japan Open, where injury got the better of her.
#3 PV Sindhu
2017 was pretty much PV Sindhu’s first consistent season on the Tour. Sindhu’s confidence got a massive boost since her historic silver medal at the Rio Olympics last year and that, in turn, helped her inject a bit of consistency that was earlier missing from her resume.
Sindhu finished the year with three titles, two of which were Superseries, having reached a career-high No. 2 in the ranking chart. The lanky Indian exuded some major improvements in her game, which included sprucing up her backhands and her defence.
That was evident when she played two of the biggest finals of the year at the World Championships and the World Superseries Finals. She succumbed to close three-game defeats in both, but the tenacity and the hunger that she showed definitely augur well for the future.
#2 Akane Yamaguchi
If the first half of the season belonged to Tai Tzu Ying, then the second half of the year was surely owned by Akane Yamaguchi. The 20-year-old was always in the thick of things even in the first half, but never quite managed to make a last push in the biggest tournaments.
She took it to altogether another level post the World Championships, when she went on a rampage. In seven tournaments, she reached the final in four, converting two. The biggest title of her career came in the final event of the season when she edged PV Sindhu in three gruelling games to clinch the World Superseries Finals title.
Yamaguchi’s consistency was rewarded with a rise to a career-high World No. 2 ranking at the end of the year.
#1 Tai Tzu Ying
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the 2017 season belonged to Tai Tzu Ying. The Chinese Taipei ace simply continued from where she left last year, winning the first three Superseries titles of the year, apart from the Badminton Asia Championships. Her sizzling form helped her build a fabulous 27-match winning streak that got snapped at the Indonesia Open when she lost to Nitchaon Jindapol.
She somehow lost a bit of her sharpness mid-way through the year, probably because her own exploits finally took a toll on her. But what was more remarkable was that Tai still managed to find her feet towards the end of the season and finished the year on a high by grabbing a couple more Superseries titles.
The World No. 1 etched her name in record books by becoming the only singles player this year to win five Superseries titles.
