How it unfolded
This final at Glasgow's Emirates Arena ran 110 minutes, the longest women's singles final in World Championship history. Nozomi Okuhara took the first game 21-19, and Sindhu answered 22-20 in the second. The third game alone took 46 minutes. A 73-shot rally at 19-19 saw both players run corner to corner until Sindhu erred, and that single rally became the match's defining image. The 1.56-metre Okuhara kept retrieving Sindhu's cross-court smashes, and Sindhu held championship point at 20-19 but could not convert. The final score was 22-20. Both players sank to the court when it ended, and Okuhara became Japan's first women's singles world champion. Sindhu repaid the loss two years later, beating the same opponent 21-7, 21-7 in the 2019 Basel final to become India's first world champion.
Why it still matters
This is the most persuasive proof that women's singles can match the men's game for power and endurance. Top-level women's singles has since trained around 30-40 shot rallies as the baseline, and stamina management and rally length have moved to the center of tactics. It was also the first time two rising powers, Japan and India, filled the sport's biggest stage ahead of China and Indonesia.