The good news first: the best men’s doubles with Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup is ready for Saturday’s semi-finals at the sæsonfinalerne in badminton.
The not so good news is then, that the danes are mørbankede after a truly fast-paced gruppefinale Friday afternoon against verdensmestrene from China, Li Junhui and Liu Yuchen.
And then lost the. In a close tresætter ended the chinese with a sometimes deafening the audience in the back as the winners with a 18-21, 21-15, 21-17.
That the danes still are semifinaleklar is due to the indonesians Marcus Gideon, and Kevin Sukamuljo earlier in the day, had to withdraw with an injury to the former. And as the second chinese pair in the group, He and Zhou, had not won anything the first two days, it was clear that both of the couple was on – regardless of the outcome.
Yet they gave everything they had to ensure gruppesejren.
It meant a blast of a fight, for no one had the desire to lose weight and thus risk meeting of the japanese Endo and Watanabe, who at the time of writing looks like a winner of group B.
the Match featured a wide range of long and grueling duels, which are already towards the end of the 1. set made its mark on the players, who seemed tired. It only got dueling to be longer, since their smash everything else just not had the same speed as in the past.
add to this Li Junhuis knee injury in the second set, which briefly questioned whether the couple could continue.
He got some spray and a bandage on, and then it was otherwise beyond the steppes again. But he was labeled, it was obvious.
Yet pulled the second set in the house, and even the final victory.
It is curious, by the rules is that the two can run into each other again in Saturday’s semi-final. For the case of a draw, where the only certainty is that the two gruppevindere can’t meet each other.