Carolina Marín starts the World Tour Finals with Victory

Carolina Marín started her career at the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals with a victory that have started this Wednesday in Bangkok. Marín, the first seed of the tournament, won his Russia’s Evgeniya Kosetskaya’s first group match in straight sets 21-19 and 21-14 after almost 40 minutes of play. ‘Caro’ went from less to more in the match after Kosetskaya put him in trouble in the first set and in the second he was more accurate to add his first victory in the tournament.

At the start of the match, Kosetskaya managed to get ahead but three consecutive points from Marín allowed him to gain some advantage on the scoreboard (4-2). The Russian did not shrink and managed to equalize the match, but at each point she achieved, Marín responded to continue to have the initiative on the scoreboard and even open a 3-point lead (14-11). However, Kosetskaya’s aggressive play allowed him to chain 5 points to turn the score around (14-16). After these difficult moments, Marín rebuilt himself and with a 4-0 run he got ahead again (18-16). Despite Kosetskaya’s attempts, who put the Huelva-born woman in a lot of trouble and even got to a point in the final stretch, Marín managed to close the set the first time she had 21-19. “I’ve been a bit lost,” he came to say during the break between sets.

In the second round, Marín took the initiative, although Kosetskaya managed to get to a point (3-2). The inaccuracies of the Russian made Marín take a four-point lead, although Kosetskaya managed to equalize the match (8-8). But Marín reacted by overcoming the uploads to the Russian network to reach the break with a 3-point margin (11-8). Despite Kosetskaya’s attempts, Marín managed to open a 4-point lead thanks to her aggressiveness in the net (16-12) and although the Russian fought a battle, He could do little in the fight on the net with Marín, who closed the game with a 4-0 run to take the set 21-14 and add his first victory in the tournament.

This Thursday Marín will seek her second victory in Group A against Canadian Michelle Li, who lost to South Korean Se Young An in straight sets by 21-12 and 21-17. The Huelva-born woman has a favorable 3-2 record with Li, who defeated her at the Sudirman Cup 2015 before Marín got his revenge that same year at the Danish Open and the China Open. In 2017, Li beat Marín at the Hong Kong Open but a year later, in the same tournament, the Huelva-born woman won 21-14 and 21-8 in the last match played between the two. Marín will seek another victory against the Canadian on her way to becoming the ‘Master’ of world badminton.