Nozomi Okuhara

Nozomi Okuhara
Personal information
Birth name	奥原 希望
Country	Japan
Born	(1995-03-13) March 13, 1995 Nagano Prefecture, Japan
Height	1.55 m (5 ft 1 in)
Handedness	Right
Women's Singles
Career record	160–52
Highest ranking	3 (March 16, 2016)
Current ranking	4 (November 24, 2016)
Medal record Representing Japan Olympic Games 2016 Rio de Janeiro Women's singles Asian Championships 2016 Hyderabad Women's team Sudirman Cup 2015 Dongguan Team World Junior Championships 2012 Chiba Girls Singles 2011 Taoyuan Girls Singles Asian Junior Championships 2012 Gimcheon Girls Singles
BWF profile

Nozomi Okuhara (奥原 希望, Okuhara Nozomi, born 13 March 1995) is a female Japanese badminton player who is a singles specialist. She won bronze medal in the 2016 Olympics.

Career

In 2011, the then 16-year-old Nozomi Okuhara became the youngest women's singles champion ever at the All Japan Badminton Championships, which are the Japanese National Badminton Championships. She won a BWF World junior title in the girls singles event at the 2012 BWF World Junior Championships after reaching the semi-finals, winning bronze, one year earlier at the 2011 BWF World Junior Championships.

She was a runner-up at the 2012 Asian Junior Badminton Championships. In the same year 2012 she won her first Grand Prix title at the 2012 Canada Open Grand Prix. She won her first BWF Super Series title at the 2015 Japan Super Series.

In 2016, she won the prestigious All England Open and thereby becoming the first Japanese women's singles player to lift this title in the last 39 years. She also won Bronze medal at RIO Olympics in Women's singles division. Even though she lost to Sindhu in Semifinals, in the bronze medal face off with Li Xuerui of China, as Li Xureui has not participated in the match due to injury, Nozomi Okuhara emerged as bronze medal match winner at Rio Olympics Badminton Women singles division.

Achievements

Individual titles (11)

S. No.	Year	Tournament	Opponent in final	Score
1	2011	Austrian International	Mayu Sekiya	21–6, 21–16
2	2012	Canada Open	Sayaka Takahashi	21–8, 21–16
3	2014	New Zealand Open	Kana Ito	21–15, 21–3
4	2014	Vietnam Open	Aya Ohori	21–15, 21–11
5	2014	Korea Masters	Sayaka Sato	21–17, 21–13
6	2015	Malaysia Masters	Sayaka Takahashi	21–13 21–17
7	2015	China International	Chen Yufei	21–19 21–16
8	2015	U.S. Open	Sayaka Sato	21–16 21–14
9	2015	Japan Open	Akane Yamaguchi	21–18 21–12
10	2015	Super Series Masters Finals	Wang Yihan	22–20, 21–18
11	2016	All England Open	Wang Shixian	21–11, 16–21, 21–19

  Super Series Premier/Finals

  Super Series

  Grand Prix Gold

  Grand Prix

  International Challenge

Individual runners-up (3)

S. No.	Year	Tournament	Opponent in final	Score
1	2010	Lao International	Nichaon Jindapon	16–21, 17–21
2	2014	Hong Kong Open	Tai Tzu-ying	19–21, 11–21
3	2015	Hong Kong Open	Carolina Marín	17–21, 21–18, 20–22

  Super Series

  International Challenge