Birmingham: Peter Gade, the former world No 1 from Denmark who believed he had recovered enough of his old zip to challenge Chinese dominance, was surprisingly beaten in the semi-finals of the All-England Open on Saturday.
Gade was outplayed by Lee Hyun-II, the resilient left-hander from South Korea, who earned the biggest final of his career with a 3-15, 15-8, 15-1 victory.
It may have ended the last realistic chance of Gade winning back the world's oldest and most famous open title, which he last won seven years ago.
But for the first half hour of the match it seemed certain that Gade would reach his third final at the British national indoor arena.
He took the first five points quickly, was varied and creative, and was helped by an uncharacteristically generous proportion of errors from Lee.
Gade also advanced to a 3-1 lead in the second game, and had he pushed on for a few points at that stage he might well have gained a psychological stranglehold.
But a jump smash return of serve which he put wide, and which restored Lee to parity at 3-3 seemed to encourage the fifth seeded Korean, who reduced his error ratio, defended better, and began to prosper in the relatively slow conditions.
From 1-3 he advanced to 11-3 before Gade scored again, and although the fourth seeded Dane got back to 8-11 he did not look himself and ended the second game with a tame push into the net.
The third game was a disaster for him. Lee continued to plod on and Gade's game disintegrated in a catalogue of quick mistakes, including a smash return of serve on the final point which was three feet wide and seemed to indicate surrender.
The only moment when there seemed any further doubt about the outcome was when a Gade clear landed near the sideline and was called in by the line judge, only to be over-ruled by the umpire.
Gade did contest that, but to no avail, and that made the score 7-0 to Lee instead of 0-6 with Gade serving. Despite good crowd support he could muster only one more point, making one wonder if he had been hampered by injury.
Later China became certain of the women's doubles title when Gao Ling and Huang Sui the defending champions came through to the final to play their compatriots, Yang Wei and Zhang Yawen.
This makes it a repeat of the world and Olympic finals, which were both won by Yang and Zhang.
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