The evening semi-final session really increased the volume in the arena. After some entertaining matches, we now know who our finalists are.
First on was the Women’s Singles between the 2016 All England winner, Nozomi Okuhara of Japan, and China’s Chen Yufei. It was a slow start for Chen, but she soon got into her rhythm and timed her winners well. Taking the first game well. After this, there was no stopping her, and Okuhara had no answers today.
By far the loudest match of the tournament so far was the Men’s Singles, featuring the well supported Viktor Axelsen against last year’s champion Shi Yuqi. Both players fought hard in the opening game, but it was the tall Dane who came out on top, 22-20. Shi then breezed through the second game, looking assured to take to reach the final again.
However, Axelsen managed to conjure up energy from somewhere and blew Shi away.
-I decided to spare my energy a little bit for the third game. And I really happy about that decision, as it went really well.
Entertaining
The Women’s Doubles between the always closely matched Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan and Yuki Fukushima/ Sayaka Hirota, presented some of the best rallies of the tournament so far. When asked to comment on this after their eventual win, Jia said
-It’s a commonly believed thought that Women’s Doubles is the least entertaining event in Badminton, we hope we were able to turn that around in that match.
Full semi-final evening session results:
Women’s Singles
Chen Yufei (3) (CHN) bt Nozomi Okuhara (JPN) 21-17, 21-11
Men’s Singles
Viktor Axelsen (6) (DEN) bt Shi Yuqi (2) (CHN) 22-20, 13-21, 21-9
Women’s Doubles
Chen Qingchen/ Jia Yifan (5) (CHN) bt Yuki Fukushima/ Sayaka Hirota (1) (JPN) 21-18, 23-21
Mixed Doubles
Zheng Siwei/ Huang Yaqiong (1) (CHN) bt Praveen Jordan/ Melati Oktavianti (INA) 13-21, 22-20, 21-13
Men’s Doubles
Aaron Chia/ Soh Wooi Yik (MAS) bt Fajar Alfian/ Muhammad Ardianto (8) (INA) 12-21, 22-20, 21-19
The finals tomorrow:
Men’s Singles – Viktor Axelsen (6) (DEN) vs Kento Momota (1) (JPN)
Women’s Singles – Tai Tzu Ying (1) (MAS) vs Chen Yufei (3) (CHN)
Men’s Doubles – Aaron Chia/ Soh Wooi Yik (MAS) vs Mohammad Ahsan/ Hendra Setiawan (6) (INA)
Women’s Doubles - Chen Qingchen/ Jia Yifan (5) (CHN) vs Mayu Matsumoto/ Wakana Nagahara (3) (JPN)
Mixed Doubles - Zheng Siwei/ Huang Yaqiong (1) (CHN) vs Yuta Watanabe/ Arisa Higashino (3) (JPN)
Play starts tomorrow 12pm (Local time)