Staying number 1 is not easy, says Carolina Marin

New Delhi: The year 2016 will be one to remember for the world’s top-ranked woman badminton player, but Olympic champion Carolina Marin of Spain says she wants to carry on improving her game.

“It is more difficult to stay at the top than to get there. I want more titles. I want to repeat the performance at All England, World Champi-onship, European championship and win some more super series titles,” Marin said here on Tuesday. It has been a stellar rise by any standards for the 23-year-old, who clinched the World Championship in both 2014 and 2015, won the 2016 All Englands before taking the Olympic gold at Rio last August.

The Premier Badminton League is using a 11-point best of three games scoring system, which will be trialled shortly by the Badminton World Federation on the international circuit as well. Said Marin on the idea, “This is the first time I have played in 11-point system. Now my performance is really good. I had one week break before I came here, I couldn’t train a lot. For this kind of scoring system here it is good for me. I don’t know if I can recommend this scoring in international circuit, let’s see. But if BWF use these scoring then we have to change a lot of things to compete in this system.”

Marin defeated Saina Nehwal in the final of the All England and World Championship last year and P.V. Sindhu at the Olympic final.