One more from Lin Dan!

by Abdul Rauf Liaqat
(Islamabad, Pakistan)

Once again Lin Dan rocked the floor of Wembley Arena by beating the World no 1 Lee Chong Wei. Lin Dan captured the World Title for the fourth time in his career. Though the game was not much easy for Lin Dan, Lee Chong Wei also tried his all the best but may be that was not a day for him.


Unfortunately Lee Chong Wei's loss is the most painful and heartache for the nation of Malaysia, as they came empty handed and still without a World Title. Lee Chong Wei also promised that he will be back.

This loss was not any less than a heartache for Lee Chong Wei, who had also lost heavily in Beijing 2008 Olympic final. No doubt that Lee Chong Wei took his revenge in All England Championships in Birmingham by beating Lin Dan in the final in a straight game by 21-17, 21-17.

Once Lin Dan found his stride it looks like he would change the game at any point. Whenever Lin Dan gets to 11 points first, 92% of the time in the last six years he has taken the set.

Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan both of them lost the last year BWF World Championships in Quarter-finals where as Lin Dan was runner up in 2005. Lin Dan becomes the second badminton player who won four gold medals in the year 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2011 and declared as a World Champion with an honor.

During the final match in set 2 and 3, Lee Chong Wei was a little nervous and puzzled, may be because of the reason that he had never won it before whereas Lin Dan had 3 medals already. The fastest smash of the final game was hit by Lin Dan of 277km/h.

Lee Chong Wei is the 2nd Malaysian man who had an honor to reach in the finals of BWF World Championships, before him, another man of Malaysia Wong Chooon Han reached in the finals of this event in 2003 in Birmingham and lost the thrilling game of three sets.

Lee Chong Wei who held two match points against old foe Lin Dan only to fall short again, the Chinese edging home on his first match point 20-22, 21-14, 23-21 to lift his fourth world title. The match was full of thrill and suspense time of 82mintues till the last match point.

After the great victory of Lin Dan, he wear off his shirt and threw it towards the spectators, also threw his shoes and cheered with great echo noise. Shake his body in the full victorious manner. Emotional scenes were there, the winner raced to the crowd and hugged his coaches and Lee Chong Wei.

Inversely Malaysian dream was over to the huge disappointment of a large following in the arena. Lee Chong Wei was very sad and tensed after losing the match, politely applauded his fans while exiting.

The Malaysian later suffered severe cramp and left the arena to rest at his hotel. "It was an honor to play in such a great match but I am obviously disappointed that I couldn't quite get over the finish-line"he said.

"This has been my best world championships to date and I am looking forward to coming back to Wembley next year for the Olympics."

Lin told reporters: "The third game was really emotional. I had to fight hard. On the match points I was just hoping he would make a mistake." Then he answered another question of the reporter as "I want to go sightseeing now. I have orders to go shopping for clothes for my wife and friends while I am here."


Credit of the photos goes to BadmintonPhoto.com and Google.