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Anders Antonsen is ready for Friday’s quarter-finals in the Super 1000 tournament Malaysia Open, where he will line up as defending champion after the triumph in 2024.
On Thursday, Antonsen defeated the Japanese Koki Watanabe, who is number 11 in the world after a marathon race of 1 hour and 20 minutes.
The Dane, who is currently the world’s second best, won with the figures 21-23, 21-18, 21-14.
It was a tricky match for Antonsen, but in the end the Dane managed to beat Watanabe for the fifth time in as many attempts.
It was a hard-fought victory in a hall where it was difficult to pace the game.
Antonsen got off to a good start with a 5-2 lead, but from there he found it difficult to show the towering level that has characterized him in recent months. The Japanese made very few mistakes and gained the upper hand.
It was a very close decision in the set, with Antonsen playing for a single set point at 20-19.
Here Antonsen let the ball fall to the ground in the belief that it was out, but it turned out that the shuttlecock was sitting right on the line.
Instead, Watanabe capitalized on his second set point when he killed the Dane in a marathon duel.
Antonsen had difficulty pacing the match, but nevertheless came in front with 16-11 in the second set, but Watanabe reduced it to 15-16, before Antonsen lifted the set home on a net roll.
From the start of the third set, the match went on for an hour, and finally the Japanese began to show signs of fatigue in the form of easy errors. That gave Antonsen the upper hand with an 11-7 lead at the change of sides.
It was never easy, but Antonsen managed to hold on to the lead and take advantage of his first match point.
“Fuck, he was good. He was a hard banana and played with insane precision. It was an insane physical match, but I think I felt better than him in the end”, says Antonsen to TV 2 Sport right after the match.
In the quarter-finals, the world number five, the Thai Kunlavut Vitidsarn, who relatively easily beat the Indonesian Anthony Ginting, awaits.
Other Danes are out
In the women’s singles, it is the end of Danish participation after defeat on Thursday to Mia Blichfeldt and Julie Dawall Jakobsen, who are respectively number 27 and 36 in the world rankings.
The latter lost with the figures 16-21, 12-21 to the Indonesian Putri Kusuma Wardani, who is number 17 in the world.
Subsequently, Blichfeldt had to see himself beaten 14-21, 18-21 against the American Zhang Beiwen, who is number 15.
Danish participation in the tournament is also over in men’s doubles.
Daniel Lundgaard and Mads Vestergaard collapsed completely against the French Popov brothers. The Danes won the first set superbly with 21-7 and led comfortably with 20-14 in the second set. The Danes then missed six match points and lost the set.
In the decisive third set, the Danes fell behind from the start and lost 13-21.
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Source: politiken.dk
