Puttita Supajirakul and Sapsiree Taerattanachai looked satisfied despite having missed four opportunities to make history as Thailand’s first women’s doubles pair in a BWF World Championships final.
The Thai pair, who turned out to be the biggest surprise package at the World Championships for they haven’t played an event previously this year, led 19-15 and then held four match points against world No.4 duo Kim So Yeong/Kong Hee Yong. Each time, though, the Koreans buckled down to deny them an opening, and eventually converted their own second match point to enter their career’s biggest final.
“We’re happy about our game today, we gave our best until the last point,” said Supajirakul. “Of course we are disappointed because we had a chance to enter the final. We had the chance, but in those situations it was very tough.”
Reflecting on their surprise performance, Supajirakul said: “We had decided to change our partnership, but as we had enough points to qualify for the World Championships, we decided to participate.”
Kim So Yeong said she was “overwhelmed”.
“We can’t believe we won, we are simply overwhelmed. There was no strategy, we were just reacting and trying to stay on the attack as much as possible.”
The Koreans will be underdogs in the final against reigning champions Chen Qing Chen/Jia Yi Fan, who dismissed two-time champions Mayu Matsumoto/Wakana Nagahara 21-13 21-14 in the other semifinal.
“It’s been a while since we played them, so we are looking forward to it. We’re not going to think too much, we will just go in there thinking of playing our best,” said Kim So Yeong.
Two-time champs Matsumoto/Nagahara 🇯🇵 take on last year's winners Chen/Jia 🇨🇳.#BWFWorldChampionships #Tokyo2022 pic.twitter.com/Y0B2oNMADV
— BWF (@bwfmedia) August 27, 2022