WORLDS 2013 SF – Fourth final for Lilyana

Lilyana Natsir is headed back to a mixed doubles final at the Wang Lao Ji BWF World Badminton Championships after a tough win over Olympic champions Zhang Nan / Zhao Yunlei.

By Don Hearn, Badzine Correspondent live in Guangzhou.  Photos: Badmintonphoto (live)

Tontowi Ahmad will get his first taste of a final match at the BWF World Badminton Championships and what better way to do it than to accompany a three-time finalist and two-time winner?  Lilyana Natsir (pictured) won this title in 2005 and 2007 and was back in the final again in 2009 when she was forced to leave with but a silver medal.

In fact, Natsir is really just resuming a biennial appearance schedule in World Championship finals that was so rudely interrupted by the competing aspirations by Adock and Bankier, who ousted Natsir and Ahmad from the semi-finals at the last edition of the Worlds, in 2011 in London.

It was no easy task to make it back to the final Sunday of the Worlds, however.  After leading for most of the first game against Olympic gold medallists Zhang Nan / Zhao Yunlei (pictured), Natsir and Ahmad were caught at 15-all as their Chinese opponents began an 8-point run that would net them the opener.

The Inonesians built up an even bigger lead in the second game, looking threatening at 17-11, only to have it cut to a single point before they finally nailed down the game 21-18.  In the third game, they were finally able to keep compounding their lead and they finished it convincingly.

“The key for us winning this match was to keep up our concentration for the entire match, games one, two, and three,” said Lilyana Natsir after winning her semi-final, “and to be daring in front of the net.”

When asked to compare their outlook about playing Xu/Ma compared to playing Zhang/Zhao, Natsir said, “Basically, there is no difference in level between the two pairs.  On one hand, we have beaten Xu/Ma more times but with Zhang/Zhao, we beat them at the All England rather easily so we had more confidence when playing against them.”

Xu Chen and Ma Jin (pictured) came through their semi-final basically unscathed.  Ma Jin had faced Shin Baek Cheol in the semi-finals of the Asian Games 5 years ago in Guangzhou but that time, Shin had the great Lee Hyo Jung on his side while Ma had yet to form this winning partnership with Xu Chen.

This time, Xu and Ma showed the Koreans the door with a straight-game victory to earn a right to challenge Ahmad/Natsir in a repeat of their Olympic semi-final, as well as a host of other meetings.  Like Natsir, Ma is a former mixed doubles champion who is playing in a World Championship final with her new partner for the first time.

Click here for complete semi-final results