Both Carolina Marin and Chen Long dropped the first game but won the next two to beat Li Xuerui 19-21, 21-19, 21-17 and Lin Dan 20-22, 21-13, 21-11 respectively. (Source: AP)

Carolina Marin won her second straight Super Series Premier title, in a repeat of last season’s World Championships final, beating Chinese Xuerui Li in yet another epic summit clash that lasted an hour and 11 minutes. The reigning World Champion relied on a late 8-point surge in Set 3 after trailing 9-14 to stomp past the Olympic champion winning 21-19, 19-21, 17-21 at Kuala Lumpur.

Both Marin and Xuerui, as well as Indian ace Saina Nehwal are skipping the next event on the circuit – the Singapore Open, and will stay in a close clutch at the top of the rankings, with the first three spots likely to see a rejig on rankings Thursday.

The final at the Putra stadium however saw the Spaniard slowly inching towards getting a career-parity (she’s 2-3 head-to-head now) with the top Chinese player, having beaten her a second time post her sensational triumph at the Worlds last year.

Cranking up her energy after a typically slow start against Xuerui, Marin seemed to appraise her opponent’s game in the opening set when she fell back 10-16. But like she had during her All England triumph against Saina Nehwal, Marin was striking some body blows with some late points – as her overhead smashing came into play – and sowing doubts in Xuerui’s head, even if she lost the attack upfront 21-19.

Marin, ranked 2 in the world, had hit her stride by the time she’d changed over to the other side of the court and led 11-5 at the break, continuing to hit with her left-handed lethality, levelling the sets at 21-19. It was an aggressive riposte as she would move quickly to the net for the killers, though it was in tiring out Xuerui that she maxed her momentum going into the decider.

The drama was reserved for the third set, as she overturned the apparent advantage that Xuerui enjoyed at 14-9, claiming the next 8 points to grab the lead, forcing the Chinese to scurry to corners and making the most of her gift of changing pace at a snap of a finger towards the culmination of a match. Xuerui whose earliest memory of Marin was a Korea Open match in 2012 that went neck-to-neck from Point 1 to Pont 21 in the decider (the Chinese won that first-ever faceoff) has never been particularly confident in closing out against the Spaniard. Like at the Worlds, she would never recover from the bruising shift that Marin manages in a flurry of winners, and went down to the 21-year-old.

In the men’s singles final between Lin Dan (ranked 5) and his heir apparent Chen Long (ranked 1) the twice Olympic champ and legend of Chinese shuttle wasn’t as successful as his fellow southpaw in women’s singles Marin, and plateaued out after a tough first-set. He lost 20-22, 21-13, 21-11 to give Chen Long his second Super Series Premier title of the year, and is now 10-0 in 2015.

China picked three of the five titles on offer – Luo Ying and Luo Yu beating Korean Chang Ye Na and Jung Kyung Eun 21-18, 21-9 in women’s doubles and top-ranked Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei winning 21-16, 21-14 against compatriots Xu Chen and Ma Jin 21-16, 21-14. Indonesian Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan scored a stunning upset over top-ranked Lee Yong Dae and Yoo Yeon Song 14-21, 21-15, 23-21 in an hour long men’s doubles clash.

A hard one to win

The Malaysia Open remains the only Super Series title to elude Lin Dan. The five time world champion and twice Olympic gold medalist has 17 Super Series and Super Series Premier titles and a Super Series Final to his name.

At the start of the year, Chen Long had an unenviable 0-7 loss record against Lin Dan. However with wins at the All England in March and now the Malaysia Open, Long has improved that record to 2-7.

Long’s win was the first by a Chinese at the Malaysia Open in 12 years. For ten of those years including the last seven, the winner had been Malaysian Lee Chong Wei. However the Malaysian could not defend his title due to a dope ban.

After taking their first three contests, Olympic champion Li Xuerui has now been beaten twice in succession by Carolina Marin.