Lin Dan defeats Marc Zwiebler in the semi-final of All England Open Badminton Championship
China’s Lin Dan proved his supremacy in the game by stopping the winning run of Marc Zwiebler of Germany in the semi-final of the All England Open Badminton Championship 2011, at National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, on Saturday, March 12. The third seed Chinese took 63 minutes to chuck out the German, who defeated the ruling World Champion, Chen Jin of China, in the round-of-16 and Kazushi Yamada of Japan in the quarterfinal of the event. In the final showdown, Lin will meet either Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia or Chen Long of China.
The ruling Olympic Champion, Lin, showed no mercy to the German right from the start of the opening set and established a good lead of 11-6, till the one-minute-break. After the 60-second-interval, Lin continued his winning run and stretched his lead to 16-6. Lin kept the pace high and spared no chance for the German to come back in the game. The Chinese took only 15 minutes to finish the opening set by a superb difference of 21-9.
In the second set of the battle, Zwiebler tried to match the speed of the Chinese right from the opening points. The German was playing better in the starting points till 3-3, where Lin geared up the speed and started to move forward. Zwiebler matched the speed of the opponent and took a two-point lead by reaching 9-7. He was ahead of the Chinese at 11-10 till the interval.
After the one-minute-break, Zwiebler played good badminton and again took a decent lead of 16-13, where Lin scored three points in a row and levelled the score at 16-16. The German stunned everybody by scoring five consecutive points to finish the second set by a good margin of 21-16, in 26 minutes.
Stung by the loss of the second set, Lin played an attacking game in the third set and established a good lead of 11-5 till the 60-second-break. After the interval, the Chinese played a complete game and built a wonderful lead of 17-7. The German was quite helpless against the aggressive Lin in the final set. The third seed of the event won the final set in 22 minutes with a huge difference of 21-11. The ending score of the 63-minute match was 21-9, 16-21 and 21-11.
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