China’s badminton superstar Lin Dan booked a place in the semi-finals of the world championships yesterday after overcoming teammate and second seed Chen Long.
The players were given a rapturous reception at the Tianhe gymnasium in Guangzhou, with the home crowd cheering loudly for both as they came on court.
The first game saw defending champion “Super Dan” and his 24-year-old rival trade point for point, drawing on an armory of high lifts, smashes and subtle drop shots. However, the game started to go Lin’s way after he leapt high in the air to drive home a smash to go up 13-10. On the next point Chen’s return sat on the net and refused to drop, gifting Lin — widely recognized as the best player of all time — a four-point lead.
Photo: AFP
A rampant Lin, 30, went on to take the first game 21-13 before slipping behind at the start of the second, but reigning All-England champion Chen failed to capitalize.
An enthralling encounter went down to the wire with a run of deuce scores until Chen sent his final shot into the net as Lin took the game 22-20, the younger player throwing down his racket in frustration.
“I’m not too disappointed with my performance, but I could have had a better end of the second game,” Chen said after the match. “There were several points I really had to win, but I didn’t. Maybe I have to be more aggressive.”
Lin paid tribute to his teammate, saying that he was a star of the future.
“We both had excellent performances — even if one doesn’t win, it doesn’t mean he didn’t perform well,” he said.
“Chen Long is very young, he will only be 28 in Rio [for the 2016 Olympics], which is a great age for a badminton player,” he said.
Lin’s clash with Chen, who is widely tipped as successor to his crown as China’s top player, was his toughest of the competition so far.
Lin, the four-time world champion and one of China’s biggest sports stars, has been on the sidelines for most of the past year to spend time with his family. His form was a mystery until the start of the tournament.
Meanwhile, No. 3 seed Du Pengyu of China beat India’s Kashyap Parupalli, the 13th seed, 16-21, 22-20, 21-15 to earn his semi-final place.
In the women’s singles top seed Li Xuerui proved too good for sixth seeded Taiwanese Tai Tzu-ying, winning their quarter-final 27-25, 21-13.
South Korea’s Bae Yeon-ju sprung a surprise, the No. 13 seed defeating third seeded Saina Nehwal of India 23-21, 21-9.
There was more disappointment for Taiwanese player in the men’s doubles with Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia beating Lee Sheng-mu and Tsai Chia-hsin of Taiwan 21-14, 21-18.
Additional reporting by staff writer
By the time Cameron Menzies finally left the arena on Monday, the blood gushing from the gash on his right hand had trickled down his wrist, part of his forearm and — somehow — up to his face. Smeared in crimson and regret, and already mouthing sheepish apologies to the crowd, he disappeared down the steps, pursued by a stern-looking Matt Porter, the chief executive of Professional Darts Corp (PDC). The physical scars from Menzies’ encounter with the Alexandra Palace drinks table after his 3-2 defeat against Charlie Manby at the Darts World Championship would be gone within a few weeks.
Manchester United on Monday blew the lead three times to miss out on moving up to fifth in the Premier League as AFC Bournemouth would not be beaten in a thrilling 4-4 draw at Old Trafford. United have lost just once in their past 10 games, but Ruben Amorim would be frustrated as more points at home were frittered away despite arguably the best attacking display of his reign in charge. Amad Diallo and Casemiro gave the hosts a halftime lead either side of Antoine Semenyo’s equalizer. Two Bournemouth goals from Evanilson and Marcus Tavernier in seven minutes at the start of the
LOW-GOAL SHOOT-OUT: Of the nine penalties in the shoot-out, only three went in, with Flamengo’s Samuel Lino, and Vitinha and Nuno Mendes of PSG netting Matvei Safonov on Wednesday made four straight penalty saves in a penalty shoot-out to help Paris Saint-Germain beat Flamengo in the Intercontinental Cup final and win a sixth trophy of the year. The Russian goalkeeper was thrown in the air by his teammates after his exploits in the shoot-out, which was won 2-1 by PSG after a 1-1 draw after extra-time. It completed a trophy-laden 12 months for the French team, who had already won the Trophee des Champions, Ligue 1, the Coupe de France, the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Super Cup — also on penalties against Tottenham Hotspur in
Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) were ordered on Tuesday by a French labor court to pay their former forward Kylian Mbappe up to 61 million euros (US$71.6 million) in unpaid wages and bonuses. France captain Mbappe, who left PSG in June last year to join Real Madrid, had been claiming more than 260 million euros in total from his former club. PSG in turn had demanded Mbappe pay them 440 million euros. Mbappe, 26, also claimed the Qatari-owned reigning European champions had applied the wrong French legal classification to his contract, but that was rejected by the court. The labor court said
RSS