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TODAY at the Yonex All England - Sunday
13th, The Finals |
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Draws & Results
Bo&Morgensen
Lee Chong Wei
Finals Roundup
Photo Galleries |
Yonex All England Championships
2011 - Finals
WS: [1] Wang Shixian (Chn)
bt Eriko Hirose (Jpn)
24-22, 22-18 (55m)
MD: [1] Boe&Mogensen (Dev) bt [5] Koo&Tan (Mas) 15-21,
21-18, 21-18 (62m)
WD: [3] Wang & Fu (Chn) bt Fuji & Kaakiwa (Jpn)
21-2, 21-9 (27m)
XD: Xu & Ma (Chn) bt Prakapamol & Thoungrhonhkam (Ina)
21-13, 21-9 (36m)
MS: [1] Lee Chong Wei (Mas) bt [3] Lin Dan (Chn)
21-17, 21-17 (50m)
Richard Eaton reports ... Photos & Website by Steve
Cubbins |
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Lee gets the better of Lin Dan
Richard Eaton reports
Lee Chong Wei successfully defended his All-England Open
men's singles title when he beat his greatest rival, Lin Dan,
the Olympic champion from China, by 21-17, 21-17 in the final.
The top-seeded Malaysian's triumph came as a surprise to many
people, for Lin had beaten Lee in three games the month before
last at the world's first million dollar tournament, the Korean
Open.
 That
was the Chinese legend's 15th success in 22 encounters with Lee,
and he had seemed back to somewhere near his best after an
abdominal injury.
But this time Lin rarely tried the fierce airborne attacks for
which he has become famous, and Lee's superb movement and
excellent shuttle control in the resulting game of cat-and-mouse
proved marginally superior.
"I played safe today � I didn't go for the points at all," Lee
said. "But I was mentally strong this time."
He immediately got a call from the prime minister of Malaysia,
Dato� Sri Mohammad Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak, who told him
"good job".
It became evident that Lee might score a famous victory soon
after the interval in the first game, when he surged from 11-10
to 17-10 and looked well in control at 18-12.
Some of the rallies were flat and fast, but many of them involve
probing clears, lifts and drops, and clever manoeuvring. It was
not till the second game that Lin tried to apply much force with
his overhead.
 However
he got back to 17-18 thanks to wonderful accuracy and
consistency, and at that moment it seemed that Lee might be
wobbling mentally.
But Lin unaccountably tried a clipped drop which fell too short
and found the net, and that reduced the psychological pressure
on his edgy opponent immensely.
Lee concluded that game with a squall of smashes and hurtled to
a lead of 8-2 in the second game. It was then that Lin tried a
few of his once-famous aerial bombardments, getting ceilingwards
and levering the shuttle down more steeply.
But they were intermittent efforts, and gradually the match
slipped back into its cagey patterns once Lin had got back on
even terms.
From 17-all Lee made his final push. A disguised return and
smash got him the lead again, an overhead drop got him to 19-17,
and an amazing block winner from point blank range got him to
match point which he converted when Lin was pressured into
switching a net shot across court and narrowly wide.
 "It
didn't work out as well as I thought," said Lin. "I made more
errors than usual."
The defeat means Lin failed to achieve a fifth All-England Open
title, which would have been a unique achievement in the open
era.
The next All-England, five months before the 2012 Olympics, will
be his last before his retirement. |
China regains the All-England
women's singles title
Richard Eaton reports
 Top-seeded
Wang Shixian regained the All-England Open women's
singles title for China, earning it for the seventh time in ten
years for the sport's leading nation.
Wang did that with a 24-22, 21-18 victory in a fine final
against Eriko Hirose, the Japanese player who attracted
admiration and sympathy for her unseeded progress to the
showdown.
Wang's speed about the court and experience of big finals � she
was winner of the Malaysian Open and a finalist at the first
million dollar tournament, the Korean Open in January � were
crucial.
She did not panic when the determined Hirose pulled back a
five-game first game deficit and held game points at 20-19 and
21-20.
Had Hirose sneaked either of those pivotal rallies, much may
have been different. �I knew how important it was to win those,�
said Wang.
She delivered a solid smash to the backhand on the first of
them, forcing a defensive error. Then on the second game point
conjured two delightful net shots, her delicate tumbler going
for an untouchable winner.
�I had been a little bit nervous during some of the first game,
especially when the score got close,� she admitted.
�But I was able to play those points okay and then I relaxed. I
really liked the atmosphere of the final.�
However Hirose, the first Japanese women's singles finalist for
32 years at the All-England, more than achieved her aim of
trying to put in a good show to cheer up a grieving nation.
She often matched Wang for movement, and her focus was
excellent. She also increasingly found ways to win points
unexpectedly, occasionally with ambushing smashes but more often
with cross court switches of direction from mid-court.
 She
led 8-6 in the second game, but after that found it hard to stay
in touch with an increasingly confident opponent who began to
unleash deft attacks with punched clears and overhead drops.
Wang took five points to lead 11-8 at the interval, and although
that was reduced to one point, Wang soon surged to 17-12, then
18-13. Another Hirose fightback, reducing the deficit to two
points near the end, proved only to be a heroic failure.
�I made some mistakes but I did my best and I am satisfied,�
said Hirose, who in the quarter-finals had beaten the
fifth-seeded Commonwealth champion from India, Saina Nehwal.
�I can take some confidence from this match and this tournament.
I would like to help Japan to win the Uber Cup one day and go on
to become world number one.�
With Lin Dan due to contest the other singles final against Lee
Chong Wei, the titleholder from Malaysia, it kept China in with
a chance of winning both men's and women's singles and of four
of the five titles.
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Crackling Danes give Europe its only title
Richard Eaton reports
Once again the match of the day, and possibly of the week, was
the men's doubles. The ambience crackled, the rallies were often
a blur, and the outcome, in which a nation of a mere five
million people won another of imany All-England titles, was a
bit of a fairytale.
Denmark has a long history of great deeds in this tournament and
Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen added spectacularly to
them.
Last year they had four match points in the final but couldn't
get over the line. This time they not only achieved atonement,
they managed one with a fantastic twist.
 Boe
and Mogensen were a game and 11-14 down to Koo Kien Keat and
Tan Boon Heong, the former world number one pair from
Malaysia, and then 17-18 down before levelling at a game all.
They were in even bigger trouble in the final game - 11-16 down,
apparently being outsmarted by a pair who had won a sensational
match the previous day against Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng, China's
world champions.
Faced with these deficits, Boe and Mogensen each time made
amazing fightbacks - though nothing was quite as remarkable as
their final surge.
This brought them six points up to 17-16, two more points from
17-17 to 19-17, and two more from 19-18 to the finish, and
during these phases they began to look unstoppable.
Boe was outstanding at the net, and once Mogensen start to get
smashes downwards from the back, the nimble left-hander picked
off any suspect returns with kill after kill in the forecourt.
The Malaysians had previously had a phase where they tried to
initiate flat mid-court rallies and little net exchanges, and
sometimes that worked.
 But
having been in the driving seat for so much of the match they
lost their tactical way. And as the match boiled up to its
hectic finish, the Danish adrenaline was so high it was
impossible to resist.
"Losing like that last year was a big disappointment, and to
come back this way � well it's such a fantastic feeling," said
Mogensen.
It certainly looked appeared so, for at the end the Danes darted
around in circles as though chasing mosquitos and then rolled to
the ground where they lay like corpses.
"It's unbelievable. You can't describe the feeling. You should
try it for yourself," Mogensen said.
By contrast the women's doubles was an anti-climax, except
perhaps for China's Yu Yang who won the title last year
with Du Jing and came back to retain it, with a new partner,
Wang Xiaoli.
They overwhelmed Mizuki Fujii and Reika Kakiiwa 21-2,
21-9 and look as though they may well go on to prove themselves
the best combo in the world.
 The
Japanese came through in the half in which their compatriots
Miyyuki Maeda and Satoko Suetsana had been seeded to reach the
final, but started nervously and were never allowed to settle.
But they had achieved something which had not been done by
anyone from their nation in more than 30 years, and got a great
hand when they received their medal.
No Thai player had reached an All-England final for almost 50
years; Sudket Prapakamol and Saralee Thoungthongkam found
this piece of history hard to live up to in the mixed doubles as
well.
They were beaten 21-13, 21-9 by Xu Chen and Ma Jin, which
gave China its third title, and the result never looked in
doubt.
 Saralee
once headed the shuttle back over the net in comic frustration
at her inability to hit it where she wished, and Sudket, who had
been so good in the quarter-final defeat of Tao Jiaming and Tian
Qing, the fifth-seeded Chinese pair, could not replicate his
best form either.
Sudket also brought the match to a bizarre finish, not
attempting to strike Ma Lin's low serve on match point at all,
but letting it land in, already walking towards the net to shake
hands as he did so.
Ma meanwhile looked well pleased with the steep smashes and
threatening presence of the tall Xu. Well she might: her
partnership with him could go on to be as good as the one with
Zheng Bo with which she won the world title in Paris last
August. |
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