Shi Yuqi stuns Lin Dan, Tai defeats Yamaguchi to win All England Open title

The 22-year-old Shi Yuqi created major upset after defeating his compatriot Lin Dan at the final of All England Open at Birmingham on Sunday.  

Seventh seeded Shi Yuqi denied seventh All England title of the legend Lin Dan with 21-19, 16-21, 21-9. Lin’s absence of attacking skills grew confidence in Shi.

First game was neck-to-neck till 4-4 followed by Shi’s dominance till 9-6. The 34-year-old scored 3 points straight to par the score at 9-9 and was trailing by 2 points by the break with 9-11. The players levelled the score couple of times after the half time and then Shi grabbed the lead to seal the first game.

Lin exhibited his amazing play out of his experience and threw the tough game to drag the match into the decider, where he lost the pace and thrashed by Shi to lose an opportunity to take, yet, another All England title.

“I was controlling my stride, besides being patient. That helped me to get the match back,” said Shi Yuqi, as quoted the saying by Scroll.in.

Had Lin prevailed, he would have remained as the oldest player in 63 years to win the All England.

Lin contented that playing at this level is good.

While, Tai became the first ever women’s singles player from the Chinese Taipei to have clinched the oldest title in more than a decade.

Notwithstanding the victory over the world no. 2 Akane Yamaguchi with 22-20, 21-13, Tai admits that she committed a lot of mistakes in the first game, where she saved a game points.

The first game was full of pressure filled rallies, where both fought hard to save the game. Tai’s aggressiveness at some point punished her with the net shots to lose the points. By the breather, the top seeded Tai was three points less than Yamaguchi with 8-11. With few hiccups, the players went down the wire with 20-20, where the defending champion saved the game points.

The second game was completely under the dominance of the Taiwanese, where she maintained the safe gap of minimum two points. Gradually, Tai cruised to the huge advantage of 12-5 and then 18-13, followed by winning consecutive points to stand on the podium with the trophy.

Final results:

Men’s Singles: Shi Yuqi (7) beat Lin Dan (6) with 21-19, 16-21, 21-9;

Women’s Singles: Tai Tzu Ying (1) beat Akane Yamaguchi (2) with 22-20, 21-13;

Men’s Doubles: Marcus Fernaldi (1)/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo beat Mathias Boe (2)/Carsten Mogensen with 21-18, 21-17;

Women’s Doubles: Kamilla Rytter Juhl (3)/Christinna Pedersen beat Yuki Fukushina (4)/Sayaka Hirota with 21-19, 21-18;

Mixed Doubles: Yuta Watanabe/Arisa Higashino beat Zheng Siwei(5)/Huang Yaqiong with 15-21, 22-20, 21-16