ALL ENGLAND 2011 R16 – No holiday for Marc

Marc Zwiebler will be – together with Kazuchi Yamada whom he’s facing on Friday – the unexpected guest of the quarter-final stages of the Yonex All England badminton championships. The […]

Marc Zwiebler will be – together with Kazuchi Yamada whom he’s facing on Friday – the unexpected guest of the quarter-final stages of the Yonex badminton championships. The German “elastic man” beat reigning World Champion Chen Jin in straight games, coming back from nowhere to clinch the second.

By Raphael Sachetat, live from Birmingham. Photos: Sven Heise (live)

Marc Zwiebler probably thought he would have a peaceful weekend with his sister in Florence, hoping to celebrate his 27th birthday on Sunday in the beautiful Italian city. But instead of that, he will have to cancel his flight to Italy and hope that he can get his birthday cake coming down the podium: he beat no less than the reigning world champion Chen Jin on Thursday in Birmingham and secured his spot in the last 8, something he certainly didn’t expect with his current form.

“I’ve been sick for the past two weeks and even if I couldn’t feel it on court, I still feel bad in the mornings and at night. So, overall, I only came here because I had a good first round, but I wasn’t expecting much from this tournament,” said the shuttler from Bonn.

After a very tough first game won 21-18, Zwiebler was then short of breath and let his opponent take a clear lead in the second, thinking he would have to go to the decider.

I even told my coach that I should let go with the second game and focus on the third, especially when I was 8-14 down, but then, he started to make mistakes and as I was catching up he was obviously feeling nervous. Bao Chunlai had lost, so had Wang, so, maybe he felt some pressure at that point. My game style fit the conditions: I’m a defender and I could see the shuttles coming while he was struggling with his attacks, so, towards the end, I believed I could win after all,” added the smily German.

Zwiebler caught back, from 16-19 to 20-20 and kept patient for the two following rallies. One saw Chen miss a cross-court defense and put the shuttle in the middle of the net while the other was a long rally, with the shuttle going back and forth before it finally ended in Zwiebler’s favour. The latter threw his racket into the stands before celebrating with his coach.

It’s one of the biggest wins of my career of course. I had beaten some top players but not like that. He and other Chinese had beaten me big-time before so it feels even better,” added Zwiebler.

Zwiebler will play Japan’s Yamada in the quarters after the latter beat China’s Wang Zhengming. Lin Dan and Chen Long, meanwhile, made sure China would have two strong contestants for the gold medal.

Quarter-final line up :
Lee Chong Wei (MAS) vs. Boonsak Ponsana (THA)
Peter Gade (DEN) vs. Chen Long (CHN)
Nguyen Tien Minh (VIE) vs. Lin Dan (CHN)
Marc Zwiebler (GER) vs. Kazuchi Yamada (JPN)

For all results CLICK HERE


“SEE LIVE ACTION from the YONEX ALL ENGLAND online at www.TotalSports.tv”

TotalSports.tv is broadcasting all Super Series tournaments in 2011 and will be broadcasting the “ONE NIGHT WITH STARS” event from March 22nd  2011 with all profits going to SOLIBAD – Badminton without Borders.

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Raphaël Sachetat

About Raphaël Sachetat

Raphael is the Chief Editor of Badzine International. He is the founder of the website together with Jean François Chauveau. After many years writing for the BWF and many publications around the world about badminton, he now leads a team of young and dynamic writers for Badzine.