Sun Yu calls it quits

“Good bye my love! Good bye my dream!” These are the words – in English – which ended Sun Yu’s farewell note on her private Facebook page: At an athlete’s golden age of 24, Sun Yu announced retirement from badminton world. The former world #4 women’s singles player from China won her first senior tittle at 2012 Macau Open Grand Prix Gold, at age 18. She was also the youngest player on the Chinese 2014 Uber Cup team. Li Yongbo once regarded her as one of the players who would shine after the era of  Big 3 (Li Xuerui , Wang Shixian and Wang Yihan).

After the 2016 Rio Olympics brought the retirement of the two Wangs, Sun Yu began to climb to the level of world elite players and took the lead as China’s top women’s singles player.  However, her performance began to drop when a knee injury hit her in 2017. Most notably, Sun Yu lost to Pusarla Venkata Sindhu in the quarter-finals of the 2017 Glasgow World Championships. This was also her last BWF-sanctioned tournament.

Sun Yu had been nursing her injury ever since her that last match. Although she was registered at this year All England Open again, she withdrew before the tournament started. After a lengthy struggle with knee injury, Sun Yu announced retirement on her personal blog on 16^th August 2018.  All of us in the Badzine family wish Sun Yu a speedy recovery and all the best in the next chapter of her career.