Doha

The much anticipated quarter-final clash between defending champion of China and Germany’s Han Ying on Friday suffered a setback as the Chinese withdrew from the match due to illness.
Ning, the world number one, had developed a high temperature which necessitated the cancellation of the match as she was not fit to proceed.
The 26-year-old Rio Olympics gold medalist entered the tournament as the player to be and she did not disappoint in her round of 16 match where she took Hong Kong’s Lee Ho Ching to the cleaners with a clinical 4-0 (14-12, 11-7, 11-5, 11-6) finish.
With her absence, the top half of the draw is now open and it is likely to provide 16-year-old Miu Hirano of Japan, the youngest player in the tournament, another chance to seize a moment of history.
Hirano won the 2016 Seamaster Women World Cup in Philadelphia in October where she defeated Cheng I-Ching 4-0 in the finals to emerge the youngest Women World Cup Champion and the first non-Chinese player to win the World Cup title.
This also came as a result of the withdrawal of China’s Liu Shiwen in the quarters which meant that no Chinese player was on duty.
t of history.