YONEX-SUNRISE BWF World Championships '09 - Danes shine, all-China affair in women's doubles

Malaysians look strong in the men’s doubles with two pairs in the semi-finals while China is assured of gold in the women’s doubles with four pairs in the last four.

First world championships, first medal. You can’t beat that and this is what Christina Pedersen and Joachim Fischer Nielsen experienced on Friday after pulling the best ever win of their young career. They defeated China’s mighty He Hanbin and Yu Yang, the Olympic bronze medalists.

The kick off of the game was clearly in the Danes’ favour with an impressive 11/2 lead.

“We applied the right tactic from the very start and I felt like they were unsecure about their game. And once we took the first game, we realized that we had a chance at making it to the semis, which was our goal ever since we partnered,” said Fischer Nieslen.

The Chinese got back on track but not enough to erase such a big margin and they switched sides trailing one game down, lost 10/21. The second game was much better for the Olympic young heroes, but then again, the second game saw the Danes on top after a first small lead from He and Yu until 6/4. Ever after, it was once again the newly formed pair which was the more efficient both at the net and in the rear, where the left hander Fischer Nielsen was dominating.

In 42 minutes, Denmark had the insurance of earning a medal at least – something they had failed to do in the 2008 Olympics. A dream come true for the pair who were put together only a little less than a year ago.

The Danes will take on second seeds and world title holders Nova Widianto and Lilyana Natsir of Indonesia, while the other big upset of the day came when another pair of Danish players - Kamilla Rytter Juhl and Thomas Laybourn - beat Zheng Bo and Ma Jin, who were expected to bring Gold from Hyderabad.

“All the pressure was on them today as everyone expected them to win this event as they’d won so many tournaments before. And they were shaky towards the end of the third game while we were stronger. Zheng Bo started making mistakes towards the end,” said Laybourn.

“The Super Series finals victory helped us realize that we could beat all these top pairs, even if there was no Chinese pairs competing at the time. It might have been a breakthrough for us,” added Juhl.

There won’t be any Chinese pairs in the semis as Lee Hyo Jung and Lee Yongdae took care of the last Chinese duo of Xie Zhongbo and Zhang Yawen. The Koreans were probably thrilled to see Zheng and Ma beaten as the Chinese duo had always been their nemesis in the past.

Malaysia, just like Denmark in the mixed, is already assured of having two pairs on the podium. All is now about what kind of metal the medal will be on Sunday.

Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong had to play their best badminton to beat former world Championships Tony Gunawan and Howard Bach, 22/20 – 13/21 – 21/17. Koo was showing with gesture that his heart was beating still very fast after the match was over.

“We played better in the first game, attacking more but then we slowed down in the second, which gave them the control of the match. As for the third game, it was just about fighting,” said Kien Keat.

“We won because we just never gave up.”

The Malaysians now to take on 4^th seeds Jung Jae Sung and Lee Yongdae of Korea, who looked very strong against China’s Guo and Xu Chen in crucial points. The Koreans won in straight games 21/17 – 28/26.

As for Abdul Latif and Fairuzizuan, the other Malaysian duo also got the job done by edging out Cho and Yoo of Korea in three games. They will take on China’s Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng, sole representative as usual at this stage, for the China powerhouse.

Posted by Lucas Liau on 1:32 PM. Filed under News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0