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Dai Yun Nips World No. 1 Martin to Shake off Olymipic Shadow
World number 14 Dai Yun of China took a sweet revenge on the humiliation by world number one Camilla Martin in last year's Sydney Olympic Games as she crushed the world number one 11-6, 11-6 in the third round of the world badminton championships Thursday in Seville.
Dai, 24, found there was no reason to play badminton again after being whitewashed by Martin 11-0, 11-0 in the Olympic semifinals. She would have retired if Chinese head coach Li Yongbo had not dragged her back to the national team.
"I just wanted to try my best and take my chance because she is the world number one," Dai said. "Her technique is good but perhaps not strong enough physically today. I played a lot of long shuttles to move her around as much as possible, which forced her to make too many errors. "
The defeat was harsh enough to shake Martin's confidence in front of Chinese players following her losses to current world number five Gong Zhichao in Sydney and in last week's Sudirman Cup semifinal and to youngster Zhou Mi in this year's All England championships.
"It is always difficult to play the Chinese players," the defending champion said. "I have never beaten four Chinese in a row and that was my task.
"I couldn't keep up with Dai Yun. I knew she was tired in the second game, but I was tired too. I just didn't play well enough today."
Dai, a member of China's winning team in last year's Uber Cup, will face an uphill battle in the quarterfinals where she will meet teammate and Olympic champion Gong Zhichao, who breezed past Wang Chen of Hong Kong, China in the day's another match.
A sure quarterfinal draw with Gong has actually scared Martin before the match, who was crushed 11-3, 11-0 last week by the twice All England champion. "No matter what I did today, I knew that even if I won, I would then face Gong Zhichao. It's obvious she's going to win this tournament," the four-time European champion said.
In the day's other matches, second seed Zhou Mi overwhelmed Ling Wan Ting of Hong Kong, China 11-4, 11-4, Zhang Ning defeat Judith Meulendijks of Netherlands 11-2, 11-9 and third seed Gong Ruina took 21 minutes to eliminate Tine Rasmussen of Denmark 11-1, 11-1, enabling China to claim five quarterfinal places in the women's singles.
The other three berths were shared by Kanako Yonekura of Japan, Mia Audina Tjiptawan of Netherlands and Mette Sorensen of Denmark.
Yonekura beat Liu Zhen of Singapore 11-3, 11-8; Sorensen ousted Julia Mann of England 11-4, 11-3; Mia, a former Indonesian players, knocked out Japan's Mori Kaori 11-6, 11-4.
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