NANNING, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Ratchanok Intanon, the 2013 World Championship winner, stopped the winning streak of South Korean An Se-young in the women's singles to award Thailand a 3-1 victory and a semifinal berth of the Sudirman Cup here on Thursday evening.
The 24-year-old Intanon beat the 17-year-old An 21-15, 21-17 in the women's singles, bringing an end to An's two-match winning streak at the tournament.
"I know that women's doubles is not easy for us. We have to win the women's singles, so I just did my best," said Intanon, who once made a string of errors to let An catch up and even overtake her at 16-15 in the second game before she regained the control of the match.
"It's a great pity to lose the match. I took most time to defend and seldom got the chance to attack as Intanon is quite aggressive. Overall I learned a lot during Sudirman Cup," said An who couldn't help but burst into tears after the loss.
During the group stage, An downed top-ranked Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei and 27th-ranked Cheung Ngan Yi of China's SAR Hong Kong to help the defending champion South Korea qualify for the quarterfinals, who missed both 10th-ranked Sung Ji-hyun in the women's singles and 6th-ranked Son Wan-ho in the men's singles due to injuries.
Thailand won the opening mixed doubles through the 4th-ranked Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai who scored an identical score of 21-18 against the 7th-ranked Seo Seung-jae and Chae Yu-jung.
Thailand then enlarged the advantage to two points in the men's singles when Kantaphon Wangcharoen, the German Junior 2016 champion, beat Heo Kwang-hee, the World Junior Championships winner, 21-17, 21-17.
"I'm stronger than my opponent, and the pressure would be on him. So I just focused on every point while I was playing," said Wangcharoen.
South Korea scored one point through Kang Min-hyuk and Kim Won-hoIn in the men's doubles, by beating 33rd-ranked Tinn Isriyanet and Kittinupong Kedren 19-21, 21-17 and 21-14.
"We were under a lot of pressure after the score of 0-2, but still we had a very good mentality in the match," Kang said, adding that they were quite active for attacks. "It's of greater chance to win with more attacks. And so we did."
With the win, Thailand who had two earlier semifinal outings, will meet China to vie for the final berth on Saturday.
