How it unfolded
Held December 15 to 20 in Cairo, the final matched a 31-year-old Malaysian against an Egyptian in front of an Egyptian home crowd. Raneem El Welily took game one 11-5 and game three 11-7 to lead 2-1, and pushed ahead 10-6 in game four to hold four match balls. Nicol David saved all four, turned the game around 14-12, then closed out game five 11-5. Total elapsed time was 66 minutes. The win gave David her eighth world title, a women's World Championship record. But it also turned out to be her last world title. The following September, El Welily took over her world number one ranking, and in 2017 she also became world champion.
Why it still matters
This was the final win of one era and the preview of the next. David's eight world titles became the benchmark that Nour El Sherbini has since chased through 2026, and El Welily, having lost this match, went on to become the first Egyptian woman to reach world number one, starting the power shift in the women's game. A home-court comeback loss in Cairo was the signal for that transition.