Birmingham: Top seeded Carolina Marin overcame her jinx opponent to end a sequence of four losses in as many matches against Ratchanok Intanon and cruise into the All-England Open semi-finals on Friday.
The title-holder from Spain got the better of the former world champion from Thailand 21-17, 21-19 in 55 minutes.
“I think this is my best match so far — I spent a lot of time preparing for it,” said Marin. “I’m very happy with my performance and I really want to win this title.”
Despite putting up a fight in the first game, Ratchanok, who was seeded sixth for the tournament, trailed Marin all the way to the end and suffered a 21-17 loss.
The Thai produced a better show in the second and captured a 14-11 lead before making it 19-17 to give herself a chance for a comeback. However, Marin kept her cool and stole four points in a row to claim a 21-19 win for a place in the semi-finals.
Ratchanok, whose loss ended the Thai interest in the tournament, is gearing up for this year’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janiero in August where she is hoping to make amends for her quarter-final exit at the London 2012.
Marin next plays Nozomi Okuhara, the Super Series finals winner from Japan, who heavily outplayed Wang Yihan, the former All-England champion, by 21-9, 21-13, ensuring there will be no all-Chinese women’s singles final.
One of the notable exits on Friday was that of the second seeded Saina Nehwal, the former world No.1 and last year’s runner-up, in the women’s singles.
She looked below her best during a 21-15, 21-6 loss to Tai Tzu Ying, the former Super Series finals winner, but this was not entirely surprising.
Nehwal had lost six of her seven previous matches against the Taiwanese player, and is only just finding her way back after a lengthy injury break.
“There are a lot of tournaments to come in which I can play well and it’s still a long time before the Olympics,” Nehwal said.
“I don’t really think this is a surprise,” said Tai. “I’ve done well against her before.”
Tai takes on Wang Shixian, the former All-England champion from China, who beat compatriot Li Xuerui, the Olympic champion, 16-21, 21-18, 21-17.
Olympic champion Lin Dan scored a notable revenge over Jan Jorgensen, the third seeded Dane, to reach the semi-finals with a 10-21, 21-9, 21-15 win.
After turning the match around, Lin got completely on top before Jorgensen injected a little late respectability into the score-line.
He is surely now the unofficial favourite for his sixth All-England title with both Chen Long, the title-holder, and Lee Chong Wei, the former world No.1, both being beaten.
He next plays Chen’s conqueror, Xue Song, who played another fine match to cause an upset for the second successive day, overcoming Danish sixth seed Viktor Axelsen 21-19, 21-23, 21-11.
However Chinese players occupied three of the four men’s singles semi-finals places after Tian Houwei, the eighth seed, overcame Kento Momota 19-21, 21-15, 21-16.
Tian now plays the most surprising survivor, Hans-Christian Vittinghus, who beat Marc Zwiebler 21-15, 13-21, 22-20. Bangkok Post/AFP
