Lin Dan will take on Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen in today’s men’s singles final at the Total BWF World Championships at Glasgow’s Emirates Arena.
Lin, the five time champion, defeated top seed Son Wan Ho, 21-17, 21-14, to make it to his seventh world final. The 33-year-old may have reached the veteran stage, but he outshone the 29-year-old world No 1 from South Korea. A run of five points in a row from 15-16 down helped seal the first game and he also made another charge mid-way through the second.
“Everyone is talking about my age, but I have proved I can still play at a high level,” said Lin, who won his titles between 2006 and 2013.
“Men’s singles is very tough these days, it is a very hard route to the final. I always feel nervous before big matches, but I am very happy that I have had great support here.
“I watched Viktor’s semi-final and he’s playing very well. But tomorrow is the last match and I will be giving 1000 per cent.”
Revenge was oh so sweet for Axelsen when he beat reigning champion Chen Long in a brief semi-final. Axelsen lost to Chen in the semi-finals at last year’s Olympic Games, with the Chinese player going on to take gold.
But yesterday the last European hope in either singles events was by far the superior player, winning 21-9, 21-10, in just 39 minutes.
“I have dreamed of making a World Championship final since I was a little boy,” the No 3 seed said. “Now my mind set is to win gold.
“Denmark is just a small country and it is great to be able to compete against the very best.”
In the women’s singles, India’s Saina Nehwal, conqueror of Scot Kirsty Gilmour in the quarter-finals, went out to Nozomi Okuhara.
In a close match, the Japanese player had to come from behind to win 12-21, 21-17, 21-10. She now aims to become the first Japanese player to win the title.
Hope of a British finalist came to an end with the defeat of Chris and Gabby Adcock in the mixed doubles. The husband and wife partnership lost to Chinese top seeds, Zheng Siwei and Chen Qingchen 21-15, 23-21. Chris now has a bronze medal to go along with the silver he claimed with Scot Imogen Bankier in 2011.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here