Defending champion Axelsen shown the door by Chen Long
Holder Viktor Axelsen said that he made “way too many mistakes” as the Dane was dumped out of the badminton World Championships quarter-finals on Friday by China’s Chen Long.
The top-ranked players in both the men’s and women’s draws are now out, after Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying was beaten earlier in the day in Nanjing by another Chinese.
Olympic champion Chen will play Shi Yuqi in an all-Chinese semi-final following his highclass and emphatic 21-19, 21-11 victory over Axelsen.
There was a moment of controversy and the first game was held up for two minutes as the 29-year-old Chen disputed a call that fell in favour of the strapping Dane.
But the 24-year-old world number one, who has singlehandedly broken Asia’s stranglehold on men’s badminton in the last year, was always playing catch-up. “He was a lot better than me today, unfortunately,” said Axelsen, who tossed his racquet spinning into the air after losing the first game, drawing a withering look from the chair umpire. “But life goes on and I have to learn from this.”
NANJING, CHINA:
LIN DAN’S VOW
Lin Dan said that he has no plans to retire after the Chinese badminton legend’s bid for a sixth world title met a sorry end on Thursday in the last 16. “Although I lost the match today, I’ll discuss with my team to see what I could learn from it and hopefully improve my world rankings in the following tournaments this year. I still have the capability and time,” he said.