Carolina Marin beats one Dane after the other and is now through to the final at the European championship in Kolding after defeating Mette Poulsen 21-17, 21- 12.
Yesterday she knocked out Natalia Koch Rohde and today another Dane was on the receiving end of Carolina Marin’s powerful game. In a sold out Sydbank Arena, where the last remaining tickets for today’s semi-finals were sold at the entrance, the Olympic champion took on Mette Poulsen.
When it comes to experience in playing big matches the two players differ quite a bit. Poulsen was in her first ever European semi-final, whereas Marin stepped on court fighting for a spot in the European final, and a gold medal, for the third time in a row.
- My main goal is, of course, to win this tournament and I will fight until I get the gold medal. I feel really happy to reach the final and today was a good game. Mette has played really well during this weak and I had to play my best badminton to win today, says Marin.
Click here to see all of the results from today’s semi-finals!
Last year Marin defeated Kirsty Gilmour from Scotland in the final and this year those two will be standing head to head once again. A game Marin now will start preparing for
- First, I have to recover from this game, then we will talk about what I have to do against Kirsty tomorrow. It’s going to be a really good game, says Marin.
Women’s singles is the only category where Denmark isn’t represented in tomorrow’s finals. The home court favourites have especially been dominating the Men’s doubles category where all four pairs in today’s semi-finals were Danish.
Mathias Boe/Carsten Mogesen defeated Mathias Christiansen/David Daugaard 21-10, 21-15 and Mads Conrad/Mads Kolding knocked out Anders Skaarup/Kim Astrup 21-17, 24-22. That means that tomorrow’s final will be a clash between the recent winners of Singapore Open, Boe/Mogensen, and the defending European Champions, Conrad/Kolding.
In Men’s singles Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus played his first European semi-final today where he was up against Rajiv Ouseph from England. After a long and close match Ouseph ended up securing the spot in tomorrow’s final after defeating Vittinghus 18-21, 23-21, 21-16. Tomorrow he will face the 20-year old up and coming Dane Anders Antonsen who, quite surprisingly, won his first victory against Viktor Axelsen 21-17, 21-16.
Danish Christinna Pedersen has made her way into nothing less than two finals! In Women’s doubles she and Kamilla Rytter Juhl defeated Anastasia Chervyakova/Olga Morozova from Russia 21-10, 21-13.
Tomorrow they will be up against the Stoeva sisters from Bulgaria. A Danish victory in that match will make Pedersen/Rytter Juhl the most gold winning Danish badminton players of all time!
Click here to see the schedule of play for tomorrow’s finals!
The Mixed doubles final has the potential to be a true thriller for the crowd. The top seeded Danes Joachim Fischer/Christinna Pedersen are up against Chris and Gabrielle Adcock who are seeded two.
Both pairs were quite convincing in their performances today. The Danes defeated Sam and Chloe Magee from Ireland 21-14, 21-10, and ‘the Adcocks’ came out victorious against French Ronan Labar/Audrey Fontaine 21-14, 21-13.
Between Fischer/Pedersen and ‘the Adcocks’ the Danes have a 5-1 head to head lead, but a lot of their previous matches have been very close. For the thrill of it, let’s hope for another nail-biting drama tomorrow.
We are ready for tomorrows finals, are you?