Holder Viktor Axelsen said that he made “way too many mistakes” as the giant 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 — at three the top remaining seed — in an all-Chinese semi-final following his 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 Dane.
But the 24-year-old world number one Axelsen, 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.”
The other men’s semi-final will be between Liew Daren, the unseeded Malaysian, and in-form Kento Momota of Japan, now favourite for the title after Axelsen’s loss.
Liew defeated Japan’s Kanta Tsuneyama over three gruelling games despite hurting his right ankle.
An overcome Liew collapsed to the floor at the end with his arms covering his head and his face planted in the court.
Upsets galore in doubles
Just like the singles events, the top seeds in women’s and men’s doubles also suffered reversals on a day of upsets.
Run-away favourites in men’s doubles, Kevin Sukamuljo and Marcus Gideon of Indonesia were sent packing 21-19, 21-18 by Japanese fifth seed Takeshi Kamura and Keigo Sonoda in just 48 minutes despite the top seeds making strong comebacks in both the games after their opponents had opened up big leads.
In both the games, the Indonesian pair strung together seven consecutive points to draw level at the business end of the games but the Japanese combination always found a way to break the momentum and do enough to score the decisive points.
Earlier, Indonesia’s Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu gave top seeds Jia Yifan and Qingchen Chen of China a masterclass in defence to prevail 23-21, 23-21 in an hour and eight minutes to reach the semi-finals.
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