In this Chinese name, the family name is Li (李).Badminton playerBWF profile

Li Xuerui (born 24 January 1991) is a retired Chinese professional badminton player. She is one of the most successful players of her time. She was a gold medalist at 2012 London Olympics in the women's singles event and was the silver medalists in the 2013 and 2014 World Championships. Li Xuerui won fourteen Superseries *les, confirming her status as China's second most successful player after Wang Yihan. She reached a career high of no. 1 in the women's singles for 124 weeks. Li graduated with a BA from Huaqiao University.

Contents

• 1 Career summary
  • 1.1 2008
  • 1.2 2010
  • 1.3 2012
  • 1.4 2013
  • 1.5 2014
  • 1.6 2015
  • 1.7 2016 Summer Olympics: heartbreak and injury issues
  • 1.8 2018: Return to professional badminton
  • 1.9 2019
• 2 Achievements
  • 2.1 Olympic Games
  • 2.2 World Championships
  • 2.3 Asian Games
  • 2.4 Asian Championships
  • 2.5 World University Championships
  • 2.6 Asian Junior Championships
  • 2.7 BWF World Tour
  • 2.8 BWF Superseries
  • 2.9 BWF Grand Prix
• 3 Performance timeline
  • 3.1 Singles performance timeline
• 4 Record against selected opponents
• 5 References
• 6 External links

Career summary

Li Xuerui started playing badminton when she was 7 years old. She began playing in local clubs in her hometown in Chongqing. She made her professional debut as a badminton player when she attended the Asia Junior championship which took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Li Xuerui at the US Open 2011

2008

In 2008, she won a gold medal at the Asian Junior championship, which took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

2010

In 2010, Li Xuerui won her first Grand Prix Gold *le at the Macau Open, in the final she defeated Adrianti Firdasari from Indonesia with a score of 21–18, 21–15.

Li won her first major tournament, the Asian Championships. In the final, she defeated her compatriot, Liu Xin, 21–13, 18–21, 21–19.

2012

In 2012, she repeated her success at the Asian Championships by defeating Wang Yihan with a score of 21–16, 16–21, 21–9.

Li won the prestigious Super Series Premier event *le at the All England Open for the first time by beating Wang Yihan in the final with a score of 21–13, 21–19.

She then captured other international *les in India Open, China Open, and Hong Kong Open.

She collected five Super Series *les, including the Super Series Final in Dubai which she won defeating Wang Shixian in the final.

The 2012 season could be said to be the career peak for Li Xuerui. She made her first appearance at the Olympic Games, and on August 5, she won the London Olympic gold medal, in the final she defeated compatriot Wang Yihan with a score of 21–15, 21–23, 21–17.

2013

In 2013, she won a silver medal in the World Championship when she was defeated by Thailand's Ratchanok Intanon in the final with a score of 22–20, 18–21, 14–21.

In the same year, she won three Super Series *les in the Indonesia Open, China Open and the Super Series Final.

2014

In 2014, she reached the World Championships final, then she lost to the Spanish player Carolina Marín with a score of 21–17, 17–21, 18–21.

Li managed to win four Super Series *les including successfully defending her *le in Indonesia Open, the other *les were: *an Open, Malaysia Open, and Denmark Open.

2015

In 2015, Li Xuerui managed to defend her *le at the Denmark Open. In the final she defeated P. V. Sindhu of India with a score of 21-19, 21-12.

2016 Summer Olympics: heartbreak and injury issues

At the 2016 Summer Olympics women's singles semi-finals, Li Xuerui was defeated by world No. 1 Carolina Marín when she suffered injuries to her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and lateral meniscus. This forced her to withdraw from the bronze medal match against Nozomi Okuhara.

2018: Return to professional badminton

Li made her return to professional badminton at the 2017 National Games of China, where she played women's doubles but lost at the group stage. The reason she had played doubles instead of singles was that she was not yet fully recovered. In 2018, she made her return to international women's singles after a hiatus of 600 days at the 2018 Lingshui China Masters, which she won.

2019

In 2019, she played 25 times with 11 wins and 14 losses. She reached the quarter final at the All England Open, stopped by the 2017 World Champion from *an Nozomi Okuhara with a score of 17–21, 14–21. After that, finished as the runner-up at the New Zealand Open, losing to South Korean youngster An Se-young with a score of 19–21, 15–21.

She lost to Busanan Ongbamrungphan 21-18, 20-22, 6-21 at the Australian Open despite leading in the second game. Afterwards, her career witnessed a huge downfall. She competed in Indonesia, Thailand, *an and China and lost in the first round in all the tournaments. She announced her retirement from the international circuit in the first round match against Sayaka Takahashi in Korea Open on 17 October after trailing in the 2nd game 15-21, 3-11.

Achievements

Olympic Games

Women's singles

World Championships

Women's singles

Asian Games

Women's singles

Asian Championships

Women's singles

World University Championships

Women's singles

Women's doubles

Asian Junior Championships

Girls' singles

BWF World Tour

The BWF World Tour, announced on 19 March 2017 and implemented in 2018, is a series of elite badminton tournaments, sanctioned by Badminton World Federation (BWF). The BWF World Tour are divided into six levels, namely World Tour Finals, Super 1000, Super 750, Super 500, Super 300 (part of the HSBC World Tour), and the BWF Tour Super 100.

Women's singles

BWF Superseries

The BWF Superseries, launched on 14 December 2006 and implemented in 2007, is a series of elite badminton tournaments, sanctioned by Badminton World Federation (BWF). BWF Superseries has two levels: Superseries and Superseries Premier. A season of Superseries features twelve tournaments around the world, which introduced since 2011, with successful players invited to the Superseries Finals held at the year end.

Women's singles

: BWF Superseries Finals tournament: BWF Superseries Premier tournament: BWF Superseries tournament

BWF Grand Prix

The BWF Grand Prix has two levels, the BWF Grand Prix and Grand Prix Gold. It is a series of badminton tournaments sanctioned by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) since 2007.

Women's singles

: BWF Grand Prix Gold tournament: BWF Grand Prix tournament

Performance timeline

Singles performance timeline

Key(W) won; (F) finalist; (SF) semifinalist; (QF) quarterfinalist; (#R) rounds 4, 3, 2, 1; (RR) round-robin stage; (Q#) qualification round; (A) absent; (G) gold, (S) silver or (B) bronze medal; (NH) not held; (N/A) not applicable; (DNQ) did not qualify. To avoid confusion and double counting, these charts are updated at the conclusion of a tournament or when the player's participation has ended.

To avoid confusion and double counting, information in this table is updated only once a tournament or the player's participation in the tournament has concluded. This table is current through 2016 Indonesia Open.

Record against selected opponents

Record against year-end Finals finalists, World Championships semi-finalists, and Olympic quarter-finalists.

References

External links

• Li Xuerui at BWF.tournamentsoftware.com
• Li Xuerui at BWFbadminton.com
• Li Xuerui at BadmintonLink.com
• (in Chinese) Li Xue Rui at BadmintonCN.com