British veterans Gail Emms and Nathan Robertson won a three-game thriller yesterday against China’s champions to clinch a place in the quarter-finals of the Olympic badminton mixed doubles.
The Athens silver medalists produced a gritty comeback against China’s second seeds Gao Ling and Zheng Bo after giving up a one game lead to win 21-16, 16-21, 21-19.
With a capacity crowd roaring for China, the British pair appeared rattled in the second game, and were down 17-12 in the third, before winning seven points in a row as they finally edged in front for victory.
Robertson, who has just returned from ankle surgery that left him out of action for six weeks, said they never gave up hope of winning.
“If we thought we were finished we would have lost,” Robertson said. “That’s what the Chinese do so well against us, they fight when they’re down, then come back.”
“They never give us anythng, so it was fantastic to turn that on them for a change and come back from five points down in the third set,” he said.
The Chinese pair were considered strong candidates to take the title.
In other mixed doubles matches, world champions Liliyana Natsir and Nova Widianto defeated South Korea’s Han Sanghun and Hwang Yumi 2-0.
In the men’s singles Taiwan’s Hsieh Yu-hsing beat Wong Choon Hann of Malaysia 14-21, 21-17, 21-18 in 69 minutes to make the quarter-finals.
Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei joined him by beating Lithuania’s Kestutis Navickas 21-15, 21-7.
China’s world No. 1 Lin Dan downed South Korea’s Park Sung Hwan in straight sets while teammates Bao Chunlai and Chen Jin also won.
In the men’s doubles, Howard Bach and Bob Malaythong became the first shuttlers from the US to reach the badminton finals after downing South Africa’s Chris and Roelof Dednam.
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