The Danes put up a brave effort but in the end China took every title in the competition
Tine Rasmussen’s bid to defend her All England Open Badminton Championships title was thwarted on Sunday by China’s Wang Yihan, who defeated the Dane 21-19, 21-23, 21-11 in the women’s final in Birmingham.
Rasmussen put her loss down to tiredness, citing her gruelling three-set semi-final match against Jiang Yanjiao, from China, where she came back from being down 16-9 in the final set to win. The world’s top-ranked player added, however, that she should have won the first set.
‘I won my points but she scored on my errors, and there were too many of those today. I was just tired,’ Rasmussen told Internationalbadminton.org.
Denmark’s Anna Brosolat Jensen, who was an unranked qualifier, had her finest professional hour at the tournament, finally losing to Yihan in the semifinals.
On the men’s side, fourth-seeded Peter Gade is still looking for his first All England title since beating Indonesia’s Taufik Hidayat in the 1999 finals. It was Hidayat who sent Gade out of this year’s quarterfinals, winning 21-17, 21-18.
China ran the entire board at this year’s tournament, taking the men’s, women’s, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles titles. It is the first time one nation has swept the All England tournament since Denmark did it in 1948.
