Nguyen Thuy Linh made history by defeating the former world badminton champion twice.

Nguyen Thuy Linh impressive victory

The draw unfortunately brought Nguyen Thuy Linh ( world No. 22) to face Ratchanok Intanon (world No. 10) in the first round of the women's singles at the World Badminton Championships taking place today in Paris (France). However, Vietnam's No. 1 badminton player had an explosive match and won impressively.

PHOTO: INDEPENDENCE

With her tenacious playing style, versatile control and effective finishing, Nguyen Thuy Linh made the 2013 world champion Ratchanok Intanon struggle to keep up. With the advice of Indonesian expert Hariwanto Hong, Nguyen Thuy Linh made every stroke effective, thus defeating Ratchanok Intanon with a score of 21/17 in the first set.

Ratchanok Intanon tried her best in the second set to bring the match back to a draw, but Nguyen Thuy Linh still maintained her good form. The Dong Nai native had sharp shots that made Ratchanok Intanon spend a lot of energy. The two players competed fiercely in the score before Nguyen Thuy Linh broke through, creating a 4-point gap (18/14) and then rose to win 21/18, closing out the overall victory 2-0.

This is the second time in her career that Nguyen Thuy Linh has defeated Ratchanok Intanon, most recently in January last year when the number 1 Vietnamese player defeated her opponent with a score of 2-0. Ratchanok Intanon (30 years old) is the 2013 world badminton women's singles champion and has won gold medals at both the Asian and Southeast Asian tournaments. Nguyen Thuy Linh's opponent in the second round of the women's singles at the world badminton championships is Kirsty Gilmour (Scotland, ranked 31st in the world).