Michelle Li

Michelle Li (born November 3, 1991) is a Canadian badminton player.

Michelle Li was born in Hong Kong to Chi Keung Li and Agnes Kwong; together with her brother Mark, they moved to Canada in 1997.

An Active Child, she started playing badminton at age 11 with her mom at the local community center.

A friend introduced her to her current club, where she began lessons and competing locally in small tournaments.

She started competing internationally when she was around 17 years old.

Li graduated from Richmond Hill High School and is an undergraduate student at Rotman Commerce at the University of Toronto.

As a competitor for Ontario, Li also won singles, doubles, and mixed team titles at the 2011 Canada Winter Games.

One of Li's early notable performances came at the 2011 Canada Winter Games in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

There she won gold in the women's singles event and followed that performance with a gold in the doubles event with Alexandra Bruce.

Due to this success, she was named the flag bearer for Team Ontario at the closing ceremonies for the games.

Later that year, Li was the gold medal winner in the women's doubles event alongside Bruce at the 2011 Pan American Games.

Li would then go on the next day to win the women's singles competition, completing a second games double gold appearance that year, this time in Guadalajara.

At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Bruce and Li finished last in the round-robin portion of the women's doubles tournament, losing all three of their matches.

However, the top two teams in the group were disqualified for attempting to intentionally lose matches so they would have an easier match-up in the quarterfinals.

The duo was advanced to their quarterfinals, where they defeated Australia's Leanne Choo and Renuga Veeran.

Bruce and Li finished in fourth place, the best Canadian finish in badminton at the Olympic Games.

In the singles event, Li was knocked out by Wang Yihan.

In 2013, Li entered the finals of the Macau Open Grand Prix Gold, defeating Hong Kong top player Yip Pui Yin in the semi-finals, making her the first Pan-American athlete to ever enter into a singles final of a Grand Prix Gold event since that series began in 2007.

Li is the 2014 Commonwealth Games champion and the first Canadian to win an individual gold medal in women's singles badminton at the Commonwealth Games.

She has won gold in both singles and doubles at the Pan American Games and won the singles and team event titles from the Pan American Badminton Championships.

In 2014, she also entered into the quarter-finals of the All England Open Badminton Championships Super Series Premier, beating Tai Tzu-ying in the first round, making her, in 35 years, the first Canadian player to enter at least the quarter-finals of this prestigious tournament.

Later in 2014, Li won the Canada Open Grand Prix, making her the first home player to win this title ever since it became a Grand Prix event.

Li won the gold medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, defeating Kirsty Gilmour of Scotland in the final.

She thus became the first Canadian woman to win a singles gold in Commonwealth badminton.

She also won the singles gold medal at the 2014 Pan Am Badminton Championships in her home city, Markham, later that year.

At the 2015 Pan American Games, Li successfully defended her title, defeating fellow Canadian Rachel Honderich in the final.

In 2016, she qualified to represent Canada at the 2016 Summer Olympics but was defeated by P. V. Sindhu (21-19, 15-21, 17-21) and ranked 2nd in the group stage of women's singles.

Michelle also had several operations in 2016 to fix nagging injuries sustained earlier in her career.

She took a year off in 2017 to heal from the operations and to focus on a comeback for 2018.

After deeming herself fully fit, she entered the stage relatively quietly in 2018 until she made a landmark win against the 3rd seed Ratchanok Intanon in round 16 of the All England Open.

She had not defeated Intanon previously.

Michelle's progress was clear as she moved quickly around the court, playing much lighter on her feet than in previous years.

During the 2018 Thomas Uber Cup, Li again played well.

She defeated India's Saina Nehwal, who she had not previously beaten, by 21–15, 16–21, and 16–21.

Li spearheaded Canada to their first-ever Uber Cup quarterfinal, and she defeated Sung Ji-hyun (21–14, 21–15).

Canada eventually lost 3–1 to South Korea.

Li also won her first Macau Open title by defeating the Olypmic gold medalist, Li Xuerui (21-15, 21-18) in the quarterfinals in the same year.

In the 2019 Japan Open, Li played and defeated the No. 1 seed, Tai Tzu-ying (21–15, 15–21, 22–20), to reach the semis.

She also reached another semi-finals in the 2019 Korea Open after defeating the No. 4 seed, Nozomi Okuhara (21-23, 21-16, 21-19).

In the same year, she successfully defended her title again at the 2019 Pan American Games.