China’s Lin Dan tames Du Pengyu in the semi-final of the Badminton Asia Championships 2011
China’s ace shuttler, Lin Dan, has proved his worth against his younger compatriot and sixth seed, Du Pengyu, in the semi-final of the Badminton Asia Championships 2011, being played in Sichuan, China.
The Number one seed, Lin, took two sets of 45 minutes to chuck out Pengyu, who had earlier toppled Nguyen Tien Minh of Vietnam in the quarter-final of the event.
Dan, who is the three-time world champion and also the current Olympic champion, is the top seed in this event of the Asia Championships.
The Chinese player is in prime form, giving himself a good chance of lifting the title. Dan started the first set of the match in superb fashion and remained ahead of Pengyu, who was struggling to find any gap to score points. In the first-half of the first
game set, Dan was ahead at 11-6.
After the 60-second rest, Pengyu tried to gear-up speed to stop the aggressive run of his senior compatriot, but failed as Lin was quicker in his movement on the court. Pengyu did employ powerful smashes, but Lin’s defence was perfect to tackle the aggression
shown by his opponent. The Number One seed finished the opening set at 21-13, after spending 21 minutes on the court.
In the second game of the match, Pengyu remained quite close to his senior team-mate, when he was just behind on 10-11, at the interval. After the break, Lin extended the points difference by accelerating the pace of the game to reach 17-11, in no time.
Pengyu worked very hard to stop the progressive run of the top seed, but remained unsuccessful.
Lin clinched the second set with a 21-16 margin, in 24 minutes. Despite the spirited effort shown by Pengyu, Dan ousted his younger challenger, 21-13 and 21-16.
In the final showdown of the biggest badminton event in Asia, Lin will either face the second seed, Chen Long or the seventh seed, Bao Chunlai of China. The final of the championship will be played on April 24.
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