TIANJIN, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Olympic and world champion Li Xuerui came back to the court at the 13th China's National Games here on Wednesday after she was sidelined for one year by her leg injury.
Li, failing to breeze over Carolina Marin of Spain in the semifinal of Rio Olympic badminton event, picked up a leg injury in the match and couldn't make the bronze medal match afterwards. Later examination showed that Li tore her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and also had injury in lateral meniscus.
After the Rio Olympics, Li wrote on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like social network, that fans didn't need to worry about her as she would recover to her best in a period. However her recovery takes much longer than everyone expected.
When the National Games badminton event started on Wednesday, one year after her withdrawal from the Rio Olympics, Li eventually returned.
However, in her comeback match, Li, representing the People's Liberation Army delegation, only played the doubles in the opening round of women's team group match. Li and partner Gao Ziyao were defeated by Huang Dongping and Shen Yabing of Fujian province 16-21, 21-12, 17-21.
"As I'm still not fully recovered, I choose doubles match to play first. There is no need to play the much consuming singles match at the moment. It will be a pity if I get injured again. So I will not play singles match until I'm prepared," said Li, the singles gold medalist at the London Olympics.
