LI NING CHINA MASTERS 2009 - Can Ponsana stop China clean sweep?

World No 1 Lee Chong Wei could not provide a sustained challenge to outshine arch rival Lin Dan as the Malaysia’s game fell apart in the third game thus providing Lin Dan the opportunity to win his fourth China Masters title in Changzhou on Sunday.

Despite playing his second consecutive one hour match, Lin Dan showed no signs of fatigue to subdue the Malaysian 22-20, 15-21, 21-7 where he was expected to take on teammate and World Championships silver medallist Chen Jin.

But Ponsana rewrote the script.

Displaying a wide range of strokes, the Thai scored a major upset when he beat Chen Jin 21-16, 4-21, 21-19 to book his place in the final.

In fact, Ponsana was the sole non-China player to make the final as all the other four events – men’s doubles, women’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles, will feature an all-China final.

Malaysia received another blow in the men's doubles when No 3 seeds Choong Tan Fook-Lee Wan Wah were shown the exit by China’s Guo Zhendong-Xu Chen who won 21-12, 21-19.

The Malaysians raced to a 3-0 lead in the first game but a lapse in concentration saw them conceding six consecutive points to the Chinese. Choong-Lee failed to recover from that shock and lost the first game tamely.

In the second game, it looked to be the same script as the Chinese raced to a 13-2 lead. However, complacency seem to take over the Chinese and as they eased off the pressure, the Malaysians clawed back into the game to draw level at 16-16.

But Guo-Xu recovered just in time to nail the second game and will now take on second seeds Cai Yun-Fu Haifeng.

Cai-Fu were given a relatively harder time by Korea’s Cho Gun Woo-Yoo Yeon Seong before prevailing to secure a 16-21, 21-16, 21-15 win.

All the other events featured an all-china line up with Wang Lin and Wang Shixian emerging victorious in the women’s singles semi-final.

Wang Lin, a former world junior champion, took the first game easily 21-13 but found herself on the receiving end in the second game and lost 21-14. However, the No 2 seed turned on the power in the decisive game to deny Wang Xin a place in the final when she took the third game 21-12.

Wang Shixian, on the other hand, defeated Lu Lan 16-21, 21-11, 21-14.

In the women’s doubles, Du Jing-Yu Yang stopped part-timers Gao Ling-Wei Yili 21-19, 21-17 to book their place in the final against top seeds Cheng Shu-Zhao Yunlei. Cheng-Zhao beat Pan Pan-Tian Qing 21-11, 21-13.

Posted by Lucas Liau on 8:45 AM. Filed under News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0