Viktor Axelsen, who ended runner-up to China’s Lin Dan in the 2015 edition of the event, used his height, reach and 12-year age advantage to the hilt against Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei.
Sunday, 24 September, will go down in the annals of Denmark’s sport as a red-letter day, as Tokyo threw up two Danish champions, exhibiting their wares within a few kilometres of each other. The durable 27-year-old Caroline Wozniacki winning the Pan Pacific tennis title, and the 23-year-old freshly crowned world badminton champion, Viktor Axelsen, celebrating his unbeaten status in his second Japan Open Superseries final.
The gangling Axelsen, who ended runner-up to China’s Lin Dan in the 2015 edition of the event, used his height, reach and 12-year age advantage to the hilt over Malaysia’s soon-to-be-35, Lee Chong Wei, while handing the celebrated veteran a 21-14,19-21,21-14 hiding in an hour and a quarter, in the presence of a packed crowd at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium.
The 6 ft 4 in tall Dane, systematically wore the old-timer down, and should actually have won in two straight games, for he held a potentially match-winning 18-14 lead in the second game, after leading from start to finish in the opening stanza. Only an amazing last-ditch fightback by the Malaysian, who took seven of the final eight points with some positive, aggressive badminton, pushed the contest into a decider.
But that was the extent of Lee’s dominance in the match, which was replete with long, energy-sapping rallies, as smashes were easy to return and neither man could gain points by the short route. In such a battle of attrition, the younger man was bound to have the advantage
Axelsen barreled out into a 10-2 lead in the decider, which he enlarged to 16-7, with the writing appearing crystal-clear on the wall. Even the heartfelt chants of “Lee-Chong-Wei! Lee-Chong-Wei!” by a strong South-East Asian contingent in the crowd could not energise the skeletal-faced but paradoxically heavily muscled Lee, who played the rallies mechanically, with resignation write large on his face.
The decider could well have ended with the Malaysian remaining in single digits, but Axelsen did relax a bit, and Lee put in a final despairing gallop to reduce the margin of defeat.
