Ranked seventh in the world, Ratchanok had no answer to the solid all court game of the top seed and world No 3 Nozomi Okuhara of Japan, losing 17-21 15-21 in 46 minutes.

Ratchanok, who has two titles under her belt this season by winning the India Open and Malaysia Masters, has lost seven out of 12 matches in her head-to-head record with the 2017 world champion,

Also bowing out in the last four was Nitchaon Jindapol who fell to world No 2 Chen Yufei of China

21-10 23-25 21-6. The 29^th ranked Thai never beat the Chinese in all of their six meetings.

However, the semi-final berth in Sydney is still the best result by Nitchaon this year. Her last semi-final appearance was in the Singapore Open in July last year.