Carolina Marin – Still a Force to Reckon With
It had been a while since Carolina Marin contested a top-tier final.
· DEV SUKUMAR
Marin’s last title bout at an HSBC BWF World Tour Super 750 or above event was the YONEX French Open 2022, when she beat Akane Yamaguchi in the semifinal before falling to He Bing Jiao in a thrilling final.
Excepting that French Open, it was at the Asian Leg in January 2021 that the Spaniard was last at her imperious best, when she made three finals in three successive weeks – winning the first two: the YONEX Thailand Open and the TOYOTA Thailand Open, both Super 1000 events. A second major knee injury later that year put paid to her hopes of defending her Olympic gold in Tokyo, while also ruling her out of the World Championships on home turf.
In the meantime, the ‘Big Four’ – Akane Yamaguchi, An Se Young, Tai Tzu Ying and Chen Yu Fei -- had become the dominant fgures in women’s singles, invariably making at least the semifinals of all events they played.