Odense: World No. 1 Viktor Axelsen failed to live up to his end of the bargain on Friday, wasting chances to wrap up the match when he came from 19-20 down to force a deuce in the second set against World No. 8 Kidambi Srikanth of India.
Axelsen lost control and missing shots he normally made in the decider, going down to the Indian shuttler 21-14, 20-22, 7-21 in 55 minutes.
Srikanth will play Vincent Wong Wing Ki of Hong Kong in the semi-finals. Wong on the other hand, put on a great show to see off No. 5 seed Chou Tien Chen of Taiwan 22-20, 24-22.
Men’s singles No. 1 seed Son Wan-Ho applied maximum effort by running the court with relentless attacks to put H. S. Prannoy who defeated Lee Chong Wei yesterday out of the semifinals. Son won his Friday’s match 21-13, 21-18 in 44 minutes. Son will meet compatriot Lee Hyun Il in the semi-finals.
Men’s doubles No. 1 seeds Mathias Boe/Carsten Mogensen of Denmark were barely troubled by compatriots Kasper Antonsen/Niclas Nohr, winning the quarter-final match 21-16, 21-17. Boe/Mogensen will face reigning world champions No. 5 seeds Liu Cheng/Zhang Nan on Saturday.
In the other men’s doubles quarter-finals, No. 2 seeds Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo of Indonesia overcame Huang Kaixiang/Wang Yilyu of China to set up an all-Indonesian semi-finals with No. 8 seeds Ricky Karandasuwardi/Angga Pratama on Saturday.
