Defending champion Viktor Axelsen was yesterday to face Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia in the final of badminton’s All England Open.
Axelsen on Saturday got the better of an all-Danish semi-final, coming from behind to beat Anders Antonsen 16-21, 21-7, 21-17.
Lee should go into the showdown fresher, as he cruised through an earlier semi-final 21-13, 21-17 over Dutchman Mark Caljouw.
Photo: AFP
After 21 years without a Danish men’s singles champion, Axelsen broke the duck last year and just had enough to hold off his younger compatriot in a battle between the second and third seeds.
“It was a crazy game. Lot of back and forth, lot of nerves, lot of good rallies — it had everything,” Axelsen said.
The 2016 Olympic bronze medalist kept his cool to edge ahead at the crucial point of a tight decider, before taking his first match point with an unchallenged Antonsen error.
Photo: AFP
Lee shocked world No. 1 Kento Momota to reach the last four, and the 22-year-old suffered no dip in form as he comfortably saw off the unseeded Caljouw.
“It is my first All England final, so very happy about the performance,” Lee said.
“In the second game I lost focus a bit, but luckily I managed to get back my momentum,” he added.
Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara was yesterday to face Thailand’s Pornpawee Chochuwong of Thailand in the women’s final, after edging a classic clash with Ratchanok Intanon 16-21, 21-16, 21-19.
Second seed Okuhara battled back from losing the first set in an entertaining match.
Intanon raced into a 13-8 lead in the decider, before a series of costly errors allowed Okuhara to turn the set and match around to go ahead 20-18.
The first match point was saved by Intanon, but a wayward forehand drive sealed her fate.
Chochuwong powered into the final with a comprehensive 21-17, 21-9 win over Indian fifth seed Pusarla Venkata Sindhu.
All three doubles finals were to be all-Japanese affairs.
Defending champions Hiroyuki Endo and Yuta Watanabe were to take on Takeshi Kamura and Keigo Sonoda in the men’s final, while Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota were to face Mayu Matsumoto and Wakana Nagahara in the women’s final.
Watanabe and his partner Arisa Higashino were to take on Matsutomo and Yuki Kaneko in the mixed doubles final.
With the tournament not counting toward Olympic qualification, leading Asian badminton nations Taiwan, China and South Korea had opted not to travel because of COVID-19 restrictions.
Indonesia’s team were forced to withdraw from the tournament earlier this week after a passenger on their flight to Britain tested positive for COVID-19.
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