http://www.allenglandbadminton.com/12-day3-ms.htm
Olympic
and World champion Lin Dan reached the quarter-finals of the
All-England Open and revealed that he may not after all retire after the London
2012 Games.
Lin’s 21-13, 21-16 win over fellow left-hander Chong Wei Feng keeps alive a
chance of becoming the first men’s singles player of the open era to win five
All-England titles.
The deeds and words of the badminton’s best known player both highlighted that
his appetite for the game has not yet dimmed.
“I will probably relax for a period of time and then continue,” said the
28-year-old from Fujian, whose impact on the sponsorship capability of the BWF
Premier and Super Series is enormous.
So is Lin’s enduring skill. His ability to produce the unexpected and to switch
fluidly between defence and attack was always likely to be too much for Chong,
although the Malaysian qualifier gave a decent account of himself.
Lin also expressed support for Peter Gade, the 35-year-old former world
number one from Denmark, whose last All-England came to a controversial end
with a first round defeat in a match which started five hours late.
“He has my sympathy – he was unlucky,” said Lin, who is said to be considering
a trip to Copenhagen to play an exhibition with Gade.
He next plays Taufik Hidayat , the unseeded former Olympic and World
champion from Indonesia, surviving a late fight-back from Chen Jin, the 2010
World champion from China, who saved two match points but could not quite save
a third in a 21-19, 21-19 defeat.
Lin is seeded for a repeat encounter in the final with Lee Chong Wei, the
defending champion from Malaysia, to whom the Chinese player lost in last
year’s final but overcame in an exceptional world final at Wembley in August.
Lee also won, and similarly indicated that his predicted retirement at the
London Olympics will not happen. Instead he will make one last attempt to win
the world title next year before considering a career in coaching.
Lee's 23-21, 21-18 win over Hans-Christian Vittinghus, the unseeded but
improving Dane, required him to save game points at 19-20 and 20-21, and to
continue to work hard through the rest of the match.
“But that was what I needed,” said Lee, who now has a quarter-final with an
unseeded survivor, Dionysius Rumbaka.
The former top 20 player from Indonesia suggested he is again playing to that
standard with a well-taken 21-17, 21-17 win over Sho Sasaki, the sixth seeded
Japanese player.
The other quarter-finals see Kenichi Tago, the 2010 runner-up from Japan,
take on Chen Long, the Asian Games champion from China, and Lee
Hyun-Il, the former world number one from Korea, face Daren Lieuw, a
Malaysian qualifier who has survived in the slot seeded for Peter Gade.
Doubles trouble
Earlier Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong, the former world number one
men’s doubles pair from Malaysia, suffered a fractious end to their bid to
reach the All-England final a second successive year.
At 19-all in the final game against China’s Hong Wei and Shen Ye, Koo went
for a drink from the courtside box after being told not to by the umpire.
That got him a yellow card. When Koo then went for a walk around the court, he
was shown a red card for delaying, causing a penalty point to be awarded to the
opponents.
That put Koo and Tan match point down, which meant that one good strike from
the Chinese was all that was needed to earn an unexpected 12-21, 21-17, 22-20
victory.
