Carolina Marín from Huelva won this Thursday in two sets, 21-16 and 21-16, against the Thai Ratchanok Intanon, sixth in the ranking, and earned a place in the quarterfinals of the India Open, in which will face the number one in the world, the Japanese Akane Yamaguchi. In a duel that faced two former world champions, Marín achieved a clear victory in 37 minutes.
Imposing a higher pace compared to her previous match, when she indicated that the conditions had slowed down the game, the Spaniard did not stop moving her rival up and down the court, in movements that Intanon found difficult each time. more arrive. With some unforced errors, but without going behind on the scoreboard in the entire first round, Marín took the set with a margin of 21-16.
A similar script took place in the second, in which Marín quickly picked up the shuttle every time her rival made a mistake or she won a point near the net to resume the game as soon as possible and get the most out of your state of grace. Thus, the Olympic champion in 2016, three times world champion and six times in Europe, reached the middle of the second round with an 11-4 advantage on the scoreboard, which ended with the final 21-16.
“Very happy with how I played today, especially because of how I feel physically and how we have prepared the game. It was a fairly mental game in the sense that we had a strategy in mind. That is what I have had in mind throughout the game and it has worked very, very well”, said Marín after the match.
“That attitude is what leads me to win games against the best in the world and that’s what I want to stay with,” he said. The victory of this Thursday It is the fifth that Marín has achieved in eleven confrontations against Intanonwhich she had not faced for three years, when she was defeated in the final of the Indonesian Open.
In the next round awaits the Spanish the number one in the ranking and current world champion, Yamaguchi, who beat the Chinese Yue Han a few hours earlier by 21-14 and 21-17 in 33 minutes. The head-to-head between them is slightly favorable to Marín, who has beaten Yamaguchi eight times, by six losses. Her last confrontation dates from last October, when the Huelva volante won in two sets in the semifinals of the French Open.
