Second seed Carolina Marin takes on fifth seed Ratchanok Intanon in the Women's singles quarter-final of 2017 All England Championships at the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham on Friday.
The reigning Olympic champion survived a tight contest against Chinese teenager He Bingjiao in her second-round match yesterday. After conceding the first game 15-21, the Spaniard was tested in the second game as well but she held her nerves to clinch it 21-19 and dominated the decider to take it 21-10. On the other hand, Intanon has clinched comfortable straight games wins in her first rounds so far.
Intanon and Marin are all set to feature in the rematch of last year's quarter-final, which went in favour of the latter. After disposing off Sun Yu and Akane Yamaguchi in her first two rounds last year, the 2013 runner-up was beaten in straight games by the Spaniard. However, the Thai shuttler recovered swiftly from the setback and captured three consecutive titles in India, Malaysia and Singapore.
However, her form dipped following her Round of 16 exit at Rio Games and Intanon suffered early exits at Japan, Korea and China last year before finishing Dubai World Superseries Finals without even winning a match. Marin too has had a title drought since her gold medal-winning campaign in Rio but she was impressive in Germany last week before suffering a minor injury that forced her to pull out of the final.
Marin dismissed doubts about her fitness by surviving a marathon against Bingjiao yesterday and starts as favourite against Intanon, against whom she has managed to win only one of their five meetings.
TV Schedule
Malaysia: AStro Supersport
China: LETV, GDTV
Taiwan: Sportcast
Thailand: True visions
Indonesia: Fox Sports
India: Star Sports
Australia: Fox Sports
Dubai: Dubai Sports Channel
UK: BBC
Hong Kong: iCable, PCCW
US: One World Sport
Denmark: TV2
