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Dane Gade Wins Second Straight Tournament
Veteran Peter Gade proved he still has what it takes to beat the best in the world when he won the French Open in Paris over the weekend for his second straight Super Series title.
| The Dane followed up his victory at his home Danish Open the previous week with an excellent triumph in France, where he beat Indonesia's former Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat in the final.
Gade won 16-21, 21-17, 21-7 in a battle of veterans who both showed that they still have much to offer world badminton. Gade, the eighth seed, negotiated a tough path to the final, which included a quarter-final victory over China's All England champion and third seed Chen Jin, 21-10, 21-15. He then defeated his compatriot and fifth seed Kenneth Jonassen 21-12, 19-21, 21-17 in the semi-finals to set up his showdown with Taufik, the seventh seed who has also shown better form in recent weeks. Gade opened his campaign with a 23-21, 21-19 victory over England's Rajiv Ouseph before powering into the last eight with a 21-17, 21-19 win against Vietnamese challenger Nguyen Tien Minh. Taufik made hard work of getting to the final, with all his matches going to three games. His first match was against the Czech Republic's Petr Koukal, whom he beat 19-21, 21-15, 21-13. Then came his shortest match of the week, 52 minutes, against Malaysia's Muhammad Hafiz Hashim, who fell to the Indonesian 15-21, 21-18, 21-15. Denmark's Joachim Persson was next and against Taufik had to work extra hard to achieve a 18-21, 21-12, 22-20 victory. That win set him up with a semi-final against world number one and top seed Lee Chong Wei, of Malaysia. Lee was the favourite but Taufik used his whole repertoire of tricks to win 21-16, 14-21, 21-12. However, the strain of the week finally caught up with Taufik in the final as he lost to Gade. For Lee, it was another disappointing tournament. Yet again he failed to win a title as the world's number one player, putting his top ranking at risk. Lee assumed the number one position almost three months ago but has yet to win a tournament. |
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