WORLDS 2013 QF – Nguyen beats Jan, earns a shot at Dan

Nguyen Tien Minh beat Denmark’s Jan O Jorgensen to become the first Vietnamese World Badminton Championship medallist.

By Don Hearn, Badzine Correspondent live in Guangzhou.  Photos: Badmintonphoto (live)

Beaten in the quarter-finals two years ago by Peter Gade, Nguyen Tien Minh (pictured) was elated to finally clear this hurdle and propel himself in the semi-finals of the Wang Lao Ji BWF World Badminton Championships in Guangzhou.

Nguyen dominated the first game only to see Jan O Jorgensen (pictured) surge past him at the end of the second to force the decider.  Things started to go Jorgensen’s way again after the end change in the deciding game, as he caught back to tie it up at 13-all.

The rallies started to get longer and longer as it appeared that Jorgensen was trying to tire out the tireless Nguyen and Nguyen was patiently waiting for Jorgensen to make errors that seemed to never come.

The climax came with a marathon rally on Nguyen’s last in a string of four match points where he finally had a smash down Jorgensen’s backhand sideline called out.  An exhausted and deflated Nguyen picked himself up and managed to battle through the last few points before coming away with the 21-8, 17-21, 22-20 victory.

Asked what the key factor in his loss, Jorgensen replied curtly, “First set.  End of story.

“Yeah, I couldn’t play in the beginning of the deciding game, then I came over to against the draft and then I could make it hard for him but in the end it wasn’t enough.  I’ve played like two hours more than him this week.

“You can’t win a match when you can only play on one side.  I’ve tried but I’ve lost nearly every game I’ve played with the draught.”

“I just can’t believe what has happened today,” said Nguyen Tien Minh, “because my country is not like China, Korea, Thailand, or Denmark: the strong badminton countries.  I’m the first one from my country who can get a bronze medal.  Even if I lose tomorrow, I can still get a bronze medal from the World Championships.

“Nobody can believe it.  Even I can’t believe it.  The best I’ve ever done is a quarter-final in a major event like this.  I’ve won Grand Prix Gold events but never even been past the semi-final in a Superseries event.

“When I changed the ends in the last game, the wind was so strong, if you hit strong, the shuttle will go out so you have to control and that tires you out.  He could hit anything and it wouldn’t go out so that’s why he seemed more fit at the end.

“Jan is a very strong player.  He has already won a Superseries title.  And two years ago in London, I also played a Danish player in the quarter-final, won the first game, had 19-all in the second and then lost it, and now here I was again against a top player from Denmark.

Asked about his outlook for Saturday’s match against Lin Dan (pictured below), Nguyen exclaimed, “Tomorrow?  Today, I’m already dying!  Tomorrow, if I can get 15 points, I will be satisfied.  Lin Dan is so strong that Chen Long only got 13 points!

“It doesn’t matter if he hasn’t been in tournaments, his body is already very fit and he can hit the shuttle anywhere he wants to.  Me, I can just do a little bit here and there.

“Tomorrow I think I will play a little better than today because I can relax, knowing I’ve already made the semi-finals at last.  Today, there was more pressure because next year, I’ll be 31 and I felt like this was maybe my last chance to reach a semi-final.”

Lin Dan’s ticket to the semi-final came at the expense of compatriot Chen Long.  The other men’s singles semi-final will be a showdown between top-seeded Lee Chong Wei and Du Pengyu, who scored his first ever victory against Lee 8 months ago at the Superseries Finals, just down the delta from here, in Shenzhen.

Click here for complete quarter-final results