Wang Shixian

Wang Shixian (Mandarin pronunciation: ; born 13 February 1990) is a retired Chinese professional badminton player.

She is a former World No. 1 in women's singles.

Wang Shixian was admitted into Chinese Junior National Team in 2005 and was soon promoted to the second-level adult team a year later, but she got the chance to compete in the international stages only in 2009, after being promoted to the first-level adult team.

Wang participated in 2007 BWF World Junior Championships being unseeded.

She lost to Bae Yeon-ju there in straight games.

In 2008, she won a silver medal in 2008 Asian Junior Badminton Championships, after losing to Li Xuerui, her compatriot.

She also won a bronze medal in 2008 BWF World Junior Championships losing the semifinal to eventual winner Saina Nehwal.

In 2009, she stunned several seeded players in Malaysia Open Grand Prix Gold, including former world champion Zhu Lin in the second round, and reached the final.

By beating her teammate Wang Xin there, she won her career's first-ever title.

She won her first superseries title by winning 2009 China Masters Super Series in which she beat a series of strong rivals on her way, including no. 4 seed Wang Yihan in quarter-final, reigning world champion Lu Lan in semis, and no. 2 seeded Wang Lin in the final.

Wang won 2 superseries titles this year, first one was 2010 Korea Open Super Series, where she beat Sung Ji-hyun in the final and another one was the 2010 Swiss Super Series event, by beating Jiang Yanjiao of China.

In the 2010 BWF World Championships, she defeated Saina Nehwal in the quarter-final and assured herself of the first ever major medal in her career.

She settled for a bronze medal after losing the semifinal to Wang Xin with 19–21, 21–11, 16–21.

She savoured her career's biggest ever success by winning the gold medal in the 2010 Asian games, beating her recent nemesis Wang Xin in the final with 21–18, 21–15 scores.

She had runner-up finishes at the 2010 China Open Super Series & 2010 Hong Kong Super Series events also later in the year.

In 2011, Wang took part in the 2010 BWF Super Series Finals.

In the group stage, she defeated Yao Jie, Salakjit Ponsana & Bae Yeon-ju in straight games.

With her group victories, she advanced to the semifinal where she met Hong Kong's Yip Pui Yin and beat her in 2 games.

Her opponent for the final was Bae Yeon-ju, whom Shixian defeated earlier in the group stage.

This time too, Wang beat her, with 21–13, 21–15 scores and claimed the title victory which helped her to reach the World no. 1 position for the first time after ranks were updated next week.

She then won the 2011 Malaysia Super Series after securing a stunning victory against Wang Yihan.

Only after a week, she lost to same opponent Wang Yihan in the final of 2011 Korea Super Series.

She claimed her first ever All England crown with her fascinating victory over Japan's Eriko Hirose in the final of 2011 All England Super Series with 24–22, 21–18 scoreline.

She was seeded top in the 2011 BWF World Championships where she was upset by Taipei's shuttler Cheng Shao-chieh in quarter-final.

She then claimed 2011 China Masters Super Series title when she was leading 21–16 and 8–5 & her opponent Jiang Yanjiao retired.

She also claimed Macau Open title in the year end by beating Han Li in the summit clash.

Wang won the Korean Open title by beating Jiang Yanjiao in the final clash.

She was the finalist in the 2012 Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold, where she gone down against Saina Nehwal.

She won her first Asian Championship medal when she reached the semifinal.

But was defeated by Wang Yihan hence settled for bronze.

She was the prime contender from China for the participation in the 2012 Olympics, other already confirmed players from China were Wang Yihan and Wang Xin.

But there was another rising Chinese player Li Xuerui who was ranked below Wang Shixian but with her stunning 6 finals in the 1st half of 2012 made her ranking points more than Shixian and hence, the head coach Li Yongbo selected Li instead of Wang Shixian to contest the Olympics, and Shixian's Olympic dream was broken.

However some sources say she had relatively poor performance against other top players of different countries when compared to her teammates, significantly against players like Saina Nehwal & Juliane Schenk.

Li Xuerui on the other hand had beaten them multiple times so that's why Shixian was omitted from the Olympic squad and Li was chosen.

In year end finals, she reached the semifinal after having 2 group wins.

She ousted Ratchanok Intanon there and advanced to final round.

She retired when trailing 9–21, 4–15 against Li Xuerui and finished as runner-up.

After a moment of distress Wang Shixian started the year very well, she was runner-up to the Victor Korea Open where she was ousted by Sung Ji-hyun.

She succeeded in taking the Swiss Open title by beating Ratchanok Intanon.

Wang Shixian competed at the BWF world championship that took place in Guangzhou China as the 7th seed.