WORLDS 2014 R16 – 6 top 5s down on Day 4

The seeds began to topple on Thursday at the Li-Ning BWF World Badminton Championships in Copenhagen.  In the afternoon schedule alone, six world top 5 players were ousted, including Denmark’s […]

The seeds began to topple on Thursday at the Li-Ning BWF World Badminton Championships in Copenhagen.  In the afternoon schedule alone, six world top 5 players were ousted, including Denmark’s own Pedersen/Rytter Juhl, who lost to Nitya Krishinda Maheswari / Greysia Polii of Indonesia.

By Don Hearn.  Photos: Badmintonphoto (live)

It was the first day that seeded players began to meet each other at Ballerup Super Arena in Copenhagen.  The world #1s were scheduled for later in the day, but the rest of the top 5 seemed to be in action and they did not have it easy.  The highest seed to fall was home favourites Christinna Pedersen / Kamilla Rytter Juhl.  They remained winless against world #10 Nitya Krishinda Maheswari / Greysia Polii (pictured above).  The Indonesians are now on a collision course with defending champions Wang/Yu but they await their quarter-final opponents first.

The upsets started even earlier than that, however, as world #4 Chris and Gabrielle Adcock lost the first contest of the day, a rematch against the pair they had beaten in the Hong Kong Open final last autumn.  Liu Cheng and Bao Yixin (pictured below) may have blown a 19-12 lead and squandered no fewer than six match points but they held on to win it 21-16, 26-24.


Two Korea-Japan contests also produced big upsets.  First, Ko Sung Hyun and Shin Baek Cheol sent their ten-month old partnership into the World Championship quarter-finals with a victory over Hiroyuki Endo / Kenichi Hayakawa (pictured above).  Immediately afterward, on the same court, two-time World Junior Champions Lee So Hee and Shin Seung Chan (pictured below) scored their second career victory over Japan’s #3 seeds Misaki Matsutomo / Ayaka Takahashi.


Singles was not to be left out.  Minatsu Mitani bounced back from a crushing 8-21 loss in her first game to beat defending champion Ratchanok Intanon (pictured above) in three.

The second longest match of the tournament so far was a see-saw battle between the two bronze medallists from Guangzhou last year, Bae Yeon Ju (pictured) of Korea and India’s P. V. Sindhu.  Sindhu came back from a 5-11 deficit in the second game and saved two match points to tie the match.  Then she recovered from blowing 5 match points of her own in the decider to take the 19-21, 22-20, 25-23 victory.  She will play Wang Shixian in the World Championship quarter-finals for the second straight year.

Click here for complete Thursday results

Don Hearn

About Don Hearn

Don Hearn is an Editor and Correspondent who hails from a badminton-loving town in rural Canada. He joined the Badzine team in 2006 to provide coverage of the Korean badminton scene and is committed to helping Badzine to promote badminton to the place it deserves as a global sport. Contact him at: don @ badzine.net