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World No. 1 Lin Dan cruises into the All-England semi-finals

Japan's Shuichi Sakamoto, right, hits a shot as his doubles partner Shintaro Ikeda looks on during their quarter-final match against Lars Paaske and Jonas Ramussen of Denmark at the All-England Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, on Friday. PHOTO: AP

World No. 1 Lin Dan cruised into the All-England Championships semi-finals on Friday but the three-time winner from China admitted it was becoming harder to maintain his desire.

Top seed Lin saw off Denmark's Kenneth Jonassen 21-7, 21-11 but Olympic Champion Taufik Hidayat, whose form has been very patchy since he won gold in Athens four years ago, lost his chance of a first All-England title when he went out to the No.2 seed from Malaysia, Lee Chong Wei.

Lin is aiming to make the final for the fifth successive year -- he won in 2004, 2006 and last year -- and was always in control against the Danish fifth seed and now meets compatriot Bao Chunlai, who trounced another Dane Joachim Persson 21-11 21-13.

"I'm very happy," said Lin after the 37-minute victory. "Kenneth is a good player and I thought it would be a hard match but didn't seem quite up for it today. Now that I have won the championship a few times it is becoming harder to maintain my motivation and I need a new challenge. But I'm pleased that I am meeting Bao in the semi-finals. It is good for the Chinese team spirit that we both got through."

Lin's biggest challenge this season is to win the Olympic title in his home country in August; a fourth All-England title would be another step on the way.

For Olympic Champion Taufik, it was another disappointment.

He held four game points in the opener before going down 21-23, 17-21 to the in-form Lee, who is a former world No.1 and won the first of this season's Super Series events, the Malaysian Open, in January.

While the last two Danes suffered heavy defeats in the men's singles, Tine Rasmussen kept up her country's interest in the women's singles with a battling quarter-final victory over last year's runner-up, Pi Hongyan.

The unseeded Rasmussen had beaten China's No.4 seed Zhu Lin in the second round and she continued the giant-killing act with a 20-22, 21-18, 21-18 win over No.6 seed Hongyan.

"It was the first time that I had reached the quarter-finals, so to reach the semis is great," she said. "I was very nervous, but she made a lot of uncharacteristic mistakes and that gave me confidence. It was disappointing to lose a close first game, but then I felt I was mentally the tougher in the second and third."

In the mixed doubles, England's Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms, the Olympic silver medalists and former world champions, maintained home interest by reaching the semi-finals at the expense of England's Robert Blair and Scotland's Imogen Bankier.

The 2005 champions beat the relatively inexperienced but fast improving British pair 21-14, 21-16 to join Chinese favorites Gao Ling and Zheng Bho in the last four.

In the women's doubles second seeded Chinese pair Yang Wei and Zhang Jiewen beat Taiwan's No. 6 seeds Chien Yu-chin and Cheng Wen-hsing 21-16, 19-21, 21-10.
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