Tokyo: The top-ranked Viktor Axelsen of Denmark battled past Taiwan’s Chou Tien Chen 21-15, 21-17 on Saturday to reach the finals of the 2022 World Championships.
The semi-final victory was also Axelsen’s 37th consecutive win this year. The Dane who won the 2017 edition of the World Championships, said he would give his best performance against Kunlavut Vitidsarn of Thailand in the final.
“I am playing better and better as the tournament progressed. I was still a little tense in my first and second match,” said Axelsen.
“Chou and all my opponents are very strong, that’s why I need to stay focused when I was on the court, and I need to have a good recovery after the match. I hope I can play my best badminton of the tournament in the final,” added Axelsen.
“I look forward to facing Kunlavut in the final. He has been playing really well this whole week, and the World Championships final is a very important match for me,” continued Axelsen.
Meanwhile, Vitidsarn admitted that Sunday’s final is going to be very tough, but he is going to use that as a learning experience.
“I want to learn from Axelsen about how he perform, control, and everything,” said Vitidsarn.
“I don’t have any pressure at all. I’ll just go out and play,” added Vitidsarn.
In men’s doubles, Malaysia’s World No. 6 Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik are on course to winning Malaysia’s first world championships title on Sunday when they beat the Indian pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty 20-22, 21-18, 21-16 in the semi-finals.
Chi/Soh are set to play ‘the Daddies’ and World No. 3 pair Hendra Setiawan/Mohammad Ahsan of Indonesia in the final.
Setiawan/Ahsan held a career meeting record of 7-3 over Chia/Soh but in their last two encounters (2020 Tokyo Olympics, and the 2022 Malaysia Open), it was Chi/Soh who walked away with victories.
“I think we are young and don’t need to be afraid. We just need to give our best and be confident and I know they were world champions before. But we are younger and have met them before. We will give them a tough competition,” said Soh.
Meanwhile, Aaron Chia said they don’t want to put too much pressure on themselves thinking to become the first world champion from Malaysia, instead, they want to focus more on the proper game plan.
“I think we will put that matter aside for now. We still need to focus on what needs to be done tomorrow. The mission has not yet been accomplished,” said Chia.
“We will not put a lot of pressure on ourselves trying to make history or become the first world champion from Malaysia. We just want to focus on ourselves and tomorrow’s match,” added Chia.
Prior to Chia/Soh, four different Malaysian pairs had entered the World Championships final, including Tan Boon Heong/Koo Kien Keat (2010), Cheah Soon Kit/Yap Kim Hock (1997), Cheah Soon Kit/Soo Beng Kiang (1993), and Jalani Sidek/Razif Sidek (1987).
