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November 21, 2009

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Home » Sports » Badminton

Lin and Chen seal spots in semifinals

CHINA'S world No. 2 Lin Dan got past Indonesia's Santoso Simon to reach the men's singles semifinals at the China Open in Shanghai yesterday.

Simon, seeded seventh, suffered from a slow start in the first set. He got his rhythm only after he found himself 2-11 behind Lin. Simon made a few effective attacks to narrow the gap at 11-16. However, Lin didn't give him any more chances, winning the first set 21-12.

Simon started the second set more positively with both players stretching well to entertain the spectators. They leveled it at 11-11 but Lin collected six straight points to establish a 17-11 lead and sealed the victory at 21-12.

Lin had refused to talk to the media in the last two days but finally came around yesterday.

"I played my teammates in the first two rounds. We play against each other almost every day, so I did not have anything to say," Lin explained.

Lin will next play sixth seeded Park Sung-hwan from South Korea.

"I will play South Korea's top player tomorrow, and I hope I can perform well."

Fourth seed Chinese Chen Jin also grabbed 11 straight points in the decisive set to beat eighth-seeded Dwi Kuncoro Sony from Indonesia 21-16, 15-21, 21-12 to secure a spot in the semifinals yesterday.

Chen played terrific attacks forcing Sony to go on the defensive.

The decisive set started with Chen leading 6-4 and then collected 11 straight points to surge 17-4 ahead. Sony then made most of Chen's errors to battle back to 10-17 but then committed a mistake himself to hand the set to Chen.

"I lost to him once recently, so today's match was an opportunity for me to extract revenge," Chen said.

"We are on the same level now."

Sony admitted that Chen was better than him yesterday.

He said he was tired a bit but did not think that tiredness was the reason for his defeat.



 

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