Malaysia's Lee ends run of local hero Axelsen

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Lee Chong Wei ended Denmark's hopes of having a representative in the World Badminton Championships final on home soil by mercilessly dispatching local favourite Viktor Axelsen 21-9 21-7 on Saturday.

Malaysia's Lee ends run of local hero Axelsen

(Reuters)





Top-ranked Lee silenced the partisan crowd by securing his spot in the final for the third year in a row, beating the up-and-coming young Dane in just 33 minutes.

Despite his status as world number one, Malaysian Lee has never won a world or Olympic title, losing in two world and Olympic finals, and he will be eager to end that barren run in the majors on Sunday.

Hoping to gatecrash Lee's party will be China's Long Chen, who edged out Indonesian Tommy Sugiarto 21-16 22-20 after a thrilling second set.

Europe's only interest in Sunday's singles finals will be Spain's Carolina Marin. The ninth seed cruised to victory over India's Pusarla Venkata Sindhu 21-17 21-15 to set up a final showdown with Chinese top seed Li Xuerui.

Li powered to a 21-8 21-14 over Japanese dynamo Minatsi Mitani.

China are guaranteed gold and silver in the women's doubles after Xiaoli Wang and Yang Yu set up an encounter with Qing Tian and Yunlei Zhao.

The men's doubles final will be an all-South Korean affair as Yong Dae-lee and Yeon Seong-yoo take on outsiders Sung Hyun-ko and Baek Choel-shin.





(Reporting By Philip O'Connor in Stockholm, editing by Pritha Sarkar)


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