Lee Chong
Wei's bid to become the first Malaysian to win a world badminton title has
earned him a final with his arch-rival Lin Dan.
Lee impressively dethroned defending champion Chen Jin by
21-13, 21-9, but it will require another outstanding effort to beat Lin, the
man sometimes described as the greatest men's singles player of all time.
Three times a former world champion, Lin said earlier in the
week that he regarded this tournament mostly as a preparation for next year's
Olympic Games, to be played in the same Wembley arena.
But he looked highly committed throughout an outstanding
75-minute tussle with Peter Gade, the former world number one from Denmark, who
was playing in his last world championship.
Lin prevailed 22-24, 21-7, 21-15 but it required a tenacious
sequence of seven points in a row from 14-15 in the final game before the Chinese
star wore down the tiring 34-year-old's resistance.
"I am disappointed that having got so close in the final
game that I didn't have the strength to push through, because I know if I can
get to a close finish with Lin I have a psychological advantage," claimed
Gade.
But Lin's comments suggested that Lee might yet succeed where
Gade narrowly failed.
"I don't care about the result tomorrow," Lin
claimed, and went on to repeat his earlier mantra.
"I am more interested in getting plenty of ranking
points to qualify for the Olympics and getting completely used to the venue. I
think Lee Chong Wei is in really good form."
Lee certainly showed that with the way he dispatched Chen,
the Chinese player who had caused a surprise a year ago in Paris by snatching
the title
Chen contended only for a short while, early in the second
game, but was eventually outplayed 21-13, 21-9 by the brilliantly athletic
world number one.
It was Lee's first real test of the week, and yet his
high-paced style, supplemented by bursts of well-timed attacking, first
weakened his opponent's resources and then penetrated his defences regularly.
Chen fought as hard as he could, but increasingly found
himself plunging fruitlessly across the floor after the shuttle, or gambling
with ambitious attacks which Lee mostly contained.
"We were both patient, and then I started to play my
game," said Lee. "I have prepared well at Bath university for two
weeks and was at my best against him today.
"It will be my first world final and I really want to
win the title."
Earlier Wang Yihan showed how well she has recovered from the
lower back injury which prevented her from flying to the All-England
championships in March, overcoming her compatriot Wang Xin by 21-14, 21-15 to
reach the women's singles final.
Yihan used her height to get overhead drops down steeply,
smashed well, and also moved encouragingly well against an opponent who had
reached last year's world final in Paris.
Yihan also turned around a 5-9 deficit in the second game,
taking seven points in a row, and then recovered from 13-15 down with another
seven-point sequence, attacking consistently most of the time.
"I was disappointed not to come to England in March, but
I rested and recovered and trained well, and have prepared myself as best I can
for this," Yihan said.
Wang Xin was self-critical. "I wasn't satisfied with my
own performance. We train together so it's hard toplay against each
other," she said.
Yihan will have a final against a surprise survivor, Cheng
Shao Chieh, the seventh seeded Taiwanese player, who eliminated the favourite
Wang Shixian earlier in the tournament.
Cheng came from 8-14 down against Juliane Schenk, the
European silver medallist from Germany, to win 21-18, 21-6.
An even bigger surprise though was the unseeded Chris Adcock
of England and Imogen Bankier of Scotland reaching the mixed doubles final.
Having beaten the eighth-seeded, fourth seeded pairs they
overcame the second-seeded Indonesians, Tantowi Ahmad and Lilyana Natsir,
21-16, 21-19.
They face Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei, the top-seeded Chinese
pair, against whom they held a match point ten months ago in Germany.
Source : AFP
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