Mulheim an der Ruhr: The second seed and Olympic champion Chen Long advanced to the semi-finals of the $120,000 German Open on Friday.
Chen overcame No.9 seed Hans-kristian Solberg Vittinghus of Denmark 21-10, 5-3, after the Dane retired in the second game of the quarter-finals. Chen Long will play Taiwan’s No. 14 seed Wang Tzu Wei next.
Danish men’s singles player, Emil Holst who defeated Lin Dan in two sets on Thursday, couldn’t hold onto the momentum, falling 10-21, 14-21 to No. 6 seed Chou Tien Chen of Taiwan. Chou will meet Takuma Ueda of Japan on Saturday. Ueda defeated Angus Ng Ka Long 14-21, 21-17, 21-15 in the quarter-finals.
The Malaysian camp ended with mixed results in the mixed doubles event on Friday. No. 4 seeds Tan Kian Meng/Lai Pei Jing managed to fend off a strong rally from Wang Chi-Lin/Lee Chia Hsin of Taiwan to win the match 21-16, 14-21, 21-17.
Playing in their first tournament in 2017, Rio Olympic silver medalists and No. 2 seeds Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying put up a spirited fight against China’s No. 8 seeds Zhang Nan/Li Yinhui, but it wasn’t good enough to top the Chinese pair as Chan/Goh suffered a tough quarter-finals loss by going down 13-21, 21-18, 23-25 in 73 minutes.
Zhang/Li are set to play the husband and wife pair and No. 3 seeds Chris Adcock and Gabrielle Adcock of England in the semi-finals.
