BADMINTON WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: Holder Axelsen loses to Chen in quarters

NANJING, China: 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 high-class 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 single-handedly 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.

“He and I have had many good matches together and of course I respect him and wish him all the best.”

In the women’s draw, Olympic champion Carolina Marin bellowed and blustered her way into the semi-finals with a devastating victory over India’s Saina Nehwal.

The 25-year-old Spaniard is chasing a third world crown and on this form could well get it.

Marin plays China’s He Bingjiao in the last four after the sixth seed stunned Taiwan’s Tai.

Marin destroyed Nehwal, who cut a demoralised figure by the end of a 21-6, 21-11 mauling.

The Spaniard is particularly vocal and demonstrative on court, shouting or screaming in Spanish after every winning point and before serving too.

One member of the audience took to imitating her.

Asked by AFP what she was hollering, Marin replied with a laugh: “I cannot tell you!

“It is just something I

keep to myself. It was not a strategy against Saina, it is something I do against any opponent. I do it for myself.

“I learnt to do this some years ago, it was not something I did from the beginning of my career, that´s impossible because I was too young.

“I had to learn many things in my career, and this is one thing I learnt.”

Nehwal, a former number one who looked shell-shocked afterwards, said that she had no complaints about Marin’s behaviour.

“The pace she is playing at is quite tremendous, she was very fast,” said Nehwal, 28, who

won Commonwealth Games gold earlier this year.

The strongly fancied Tai tasted just a second defeat in 35 matches, a run which brought five titles and had made her the woman to beat in Nanjing.

But the 24-year-old was sloppy at times against He, making a series of errors at the net, going out of the tournament over three unpredictable games.

China’s He emerged after just under an hour, 21-18, 7-21, 21-13.

Meanwhile, a mammoth 117-shot rally lit up the badminton World Championships quarter-finals on Friday, leaving spectators in giggles and the players panting.

The seemingly never-ending exchange took place during an attritional men’s doubles clash between Indonesia and Japan in Nanjing.

The Indonesian top-ranked duo of Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo, and Japan´s Takeshi Kamura and Keigo Sonoda, traded shots early in the second game.

The Indonesians were down a game 21-19 and came off worse at the end of the rally, during which the duos repeatedly waited before attacking, only to be repelled.

Spectators laughed as the pairs hit the shuttlecock back and forth, before Kamura finally forced Gideon to hit wide.

The Badminton World Federation counted 117 shots before Japan won the point to go up 7-4 in the second game.

It helped Kamura and

Sonoda, the fifth seeds, pull

off an upset and reach the semi-finals.