BWF WORLD SUPER SERIES - YONEX FRENCH OPEN 2009: Taufik in Lin Dan's way for maiden title
News 1:22 PM
Taufik Hidayat and Lin Dan will feature in a dream final of the YONEX French Open after both players beat Peter gade and Chen Jin respectively.
One could not dream of a better final - the last two Olympic champions will be facing each other in
On TV court, the big match of the day was expected to field two of the fans’ favourites, Taufik and Gade, who both benefit from similar popularity in
The first game of the match between Taufik and Gade was obviously the key point of this match, with an unexpected outcome from the very start : Gade, far from his usual level, took half a game to get going, letting Taufik take the lead 11/3, committing too many unforced errors.
But the Dane found the resources to come back into the game and level up at 14/14. At this very point of the match, the two players raised their level of play to one of their best ever. Taufik seemed very calm and controlling the shuttles, but Gade provided the public with some amazing defenses, followed by quick attacks which scored on every try.
Gade stepped up on the gas to lead 19/17. But unfortunately for him and his Danish supporters who had made the trip from
Instead of enjoying this free ride to his first game point, Gade did exactly the same and his serve came short of the service line, giving Taufik another chance to nail it. The former Olympic champion didn’t let it slip and scooped the game 22/20.
“The loss of the first game really annoyed me. I was frustrated with it as I was playing really well in the end of the game. He was then fully confident in the second game. He’s a good player and I can not just let chances like that go away against players like him,” said Gade.
In the second game, Taufik was indeed playing even more confidently and won 21/14. “That’s the good thing when I play Pe
“Now, for tomorrow, we’ll see what happens.”
On Sunday, he will take on the player who succeeded in many ways at the top of the world. As the Olympic Champion (2004 for Taufik, 2008 for Lin Dan), as a World Champion (2005 for Taufik, 2006, 2007 and 2009 for Lin Dan).
As expected, the final of the women’s singles and women’s doubles will be all Chinese affairs. In a one sided contest, Wang Yihan put Coubertin Stadium on a silent mode when she gave a lesson of badminton to Pi Hongyan of France, beating the local favourite 21/13 – 21/11.
Wang will meet the other Wang - Wang Lin, who beat
The women’s doubles will also be all Chinese, with Ma Jin and Wang Xiaoli taking on Cheng and Zhao Yunlei. The younger generation has taken over, even if the latter didn’t have to fight against Du Jing and Yu Yang, who withdrew citing injury. Ma and Wang beat
The mixed doubles will be an all Indonesian affair as the confrontation between
Koo dived and retrieved a shuttle before another set of strokes went on. And then, he ended up with a clever cross court back hand which left his opponents speechless, showing the kind of form they had been in at the very beginning of their partnership, back in 2007.
Posted by Lucas Liau
on 1:22 PM.
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