Embrich and Lehis had to face off against each other in the semi-finals, with the latter emerging the victor. Other Estonians taking part in Tbilisi were Nelli Differt and Julia Beljajeva.

Lehis, Embrich and Beljajeva were all members of Estonia's Tokyo Olympics gold medal-winning foursome four years ago; Lehis took individual bronze at the same games.

Lehis and Differt had qualified directly for the main tournament thanks to their rankings being in the top 64 worldwide, while Embrich and Beljajeva had to come through qualification.

Lehis beat Luxembourg's Anna Zens in round one, while Beljajeva beat Switzerland's Pauline Brunner.

This set up a Lehis-Beljajeva encounter, which Lehis won 13:10, going on to beat South Korea's Taehee Lim 15:8 in the round of 16 and Rossella Fiamingo 15:11 in the quarters.

Embrich meanwhile beat Poland's Alicja Klasik 10:9 in a closely fought round of 16 match, and won 15:13 against Alberta Santuccio (Italy) in the quarter finals, in a similarly evenly matched encounter.

Despite being sixth seed, Differt, just outside the medals at last year's Paris Olympics, lost 15:12 in the first round to Hungarian Blanka Virág Nagy.

The semifinal between Lehis and Embrich started evenly enough as the two Estonians exchanged touches until the score stood at 6:6. After that, Lehis pulled four consecutive touches to take a 10:6 lead going into the third period. Embrich briefly cut the lead to three points (11:8), but could not get any closer, and Lehis was able to secure a solid 15:10 victory, taking her to the final.

In that final, she faced 2022 European champion, Vlada Kharkova (Ukraine). Kharkova, who had defeated the 2022 world champion, Song Se-ra (South Korea), by a narrow 15:14 margin in the other semifinal.

Kharkova started the final more actively than Lehis, quickly taking a 3:1 lead. The Estonian managed to get one touch back, but Kharkova's immediate answer was a touch of her own, allowing her to win the first period 4:2. Kharkova's strong rhythm continued into the second period, where she reached an 8:4 lead, but Lehis scored three more unanswered points by the end of the period.

In the final period, Kharkova went 12:9 up, but Lehis again managed to fight back and tie things at 14:14 just before the end of regular time.
Sudden death extra time beckoned. However, the Ukrainian landed the decisive touch, and Lehis had to accept a 15:14 loss.

This was Lehis' first world championship medal. She now has four individual medals from major championships in the cabinet, with European gold (2018) and silver (this year) added to her Olympic and world championships prizes.

Embrich, 45, now has a total of 15 medals from major championships. She had previously won one world championship gold (in 2017's team event), three silvers (individual 2006, team 2002 and 2014), and one bronze (individual event back in 2007).

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook, Bluesky and X and never miss an update!