JAKARTA - Indonesian women's singles Gregoria Mariska Tunjung ruled out the opportunity to appear in the BWF World Tour Finals 2022 which will run in December. She prefers to focus on the 2022 Australian Open.
The BWF World Tour Finals 2022 will take place 7-11 December at Nimibutr Arena, Bangkok, Thailand. Gregoria has a chance to appear in the competition.
"I don't want to think too far about talking about appearing to the WTF (World Tour Finals). At this time I want to focus and concentrate on the semifinals that are in sight first," said Gregoria in a statement received, Friday, November 18.
Gregoria mathematically became the first reserve player for the 2022 World Tour Finals. This is after one of the eight women's singles officially withdrew, namely India's representative, Pusarla V Sindhu, who was sidelined because he was still injured.
Gregoria's chances of appearing in the WTF also grew after his Japanese rival Nozomi Okuhara was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open. The defeat made Okuhara no longer able to catch Gregoria's points.
Currently Gregoria has reached 45,500 points after advancing to the quarter-finals of the Australian Open 2022. Meanwhile, Okuhara collected 45,280 points.
Gregoria's points could still exceed that number after she reached the semifinals in the Super 300 BWF tournament.
So far BWF has not officially announced the list of women's singles players who qualified for Bangkok due to the end of the Australian Open 2022 weekend tomorrow.
However, if you appear in the BWF World Tour Finals this year, Gregoria will automatically make history for the first time Indonesian badminton has a women's singles playing in the Super Series / World Tour Finals.
Gregoria, who is the 2017 junior world champion, has just made sure she qualified for the semifinals in Australia after defeating Japan's Saena Kawakami three games 14-21, 22-20, and 21-16, at the Quay Center, Sydney, Friday, November 18, 2022.
"Even though I won, frankly I was still not satisfied with the performance. I should have been better than the performance earlier. But, when I was in critical points, I was even able to play more calmly and finally won even though it was through the settings," said Gregoria.
In the semifinals tomorrow, Gregoria will face Han Yue from China in the party. Han himself reached the semifinals after defeating Okuhara (fourth seed) in a two-game match.
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