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World champion beaten by impending holiday-maker
Richard Eaton reports
World champion Chen Jin became the second big name to be
shown the door at the All-England Open when he suffered a
startling sudden second round collapse.
The player who had looked so rock solid while producing his
greatest triumph seven months ago in Paris, unaccountably
crumbled after achieving a second game lead of 18-11 against
Marc Zwiebler, the unseeded German, slipping to a 21-18,
22-20 defeat.
It was a particularly good opportunity missed because the shock
defeat of Taufik Hidayat, the second seeded former Olympic
champion from Indonesia, the night before had opened up a path
to the semi-finals for the sixth-seeded Chen.
But just as he was turning the match around he somehow lost his
feel, mistakes flowing from his racket. It allowed a
surprisingly relaxed and inspirational opponent to snatch the
advantage back.
"I didn't expect to lose," Chen said. "But I was not in good
form today. I don't know what happened. I played really bad
especially with my overhead shots."
Zwiebler, who has been ill and did not feel in best shape,
admitted that he thought the second game was a lost cause and
was already thinking about conserving energy for the third.
"But suddenly I started winning points, and when it got close I
think he got nervous," the world number 16 from Bonn said.
"I like it in this hall � I can see the shuttle well," he added
conspicuously, contradicting criticisms from Olympic champion
Lin Dan, who amongst others, had claimed the lighting was
bad.
Zweibler celebrated by hurling his racket into the crowd � for
which he was given a warning by the umpire. But it means he now
has to delay a holiday he had planned to take tomorrow in
Florence with his sister.
Instead he would now like to give himself a present of a place
in the final because Sunday is his 27th birthday. To achieve
that he must first get past a quarter-final with Kazushi
Yamada, the young Japanese who ousted Hidayat.
By contrast Lin Dan, the four times former champion, had no such
problems, winning in straight games for the second evening. This
time it was by 21-11, 21-17 against Dionysius Rumbaka of
Indonesia.
This meant that China had got three men's singles players into
the last eight, and three women's singles player too � Wang
Shixian, the top seed, Wang Xin, the world runner-up,
and Jiang Yanjiao, the sixth seeded former semi-finalist.
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