Lin Dan struggles on All-England return

Olympic champion Lin Dan was made to struggle on his return to the All-England championships after a three-year interval, needing more than an hour’s tenacious effort to survive his opening round on Wednesday.
The legendary Chinese player overcame Wei Nan, the world number 24 from Hongkong, 21-15, 12-21, 21-16 with the outcome still in doubt almost till the end of a fluctuating contest.
Lin moved economically, mixed up his tactical ploys, and produced several stunning cross-court blocked winners from full-blooded smashes.
But he rarely produced his characteristic explosive changes of pace, and when he tried to raise the tempo early in the third game he did not sustain it.
Wei sometimes extended the rallies surprisingly, and became more dangerous as the match wore on.  Eventually Lin had just a little too much skill, though little also described the margin of victory.
"I was a little bit rusty," admitted the 31-year-old, who has not played a full season since before the London Olympics.
"Maybe it takes time. I feel a little bit out of form and I have to adapt.
"The match was a little but difficult for me. I will take the lessons of this away and think about them, and work out how to play tomorrow."
He was due to meet the winner of his compatriot Tian Houwei, the world number 13, and Ajay Jayaram, a qualifier from India.
China’s other Olympic champion Li Xuerui made a happy and winning return to the tournament which set her on the path to glory when she got past a dangerous first round opponent.
It was here three years ago that the then little known Li forced her way into China’s Olympic team by winning the title.
Now she began her bid to regain it with a well-worked 21-13, 21-17 win over a former compatriot Zhang Beiwen.
Zhang, who moved from Liaoning to Singapore and then to Las Vegas and now represents the United States, showed how resilient she can be in defence, and recovered tenaciously from 9-15 to 15-15 in the second game.
It was then that Li’s great range of attacking strokes, one of the best in the game, regained their previous accuracy, and three points in a row, culminating in a winning mid-court jab, turned the match back her way.
Another high profile Chinese, Chen Long, the top-seeded world champion, also had to work hard to make a winning start in the men’s singles.
Chen was within three points of defeat in the second game against another compatriot, the qualifier Xue Song, before surviving 12-21, 21-18, 21-9.  
The minefield provided by the early rounds - with the Olympic qualifying period about to begin - was illustrated by men’s singles defeats for the third-seeded Korean, Son Wan Ho, and the fourth-seeded Indian, Kidambi Srikanth.
Srikanth lost 21-18, 12-21, 21-15 by Kento Momota, the world number 14 from Japan, who had a fierce ability to put the shuttle on the floor with deceptive left-handed smashes.
In reply the 22-year-old from Andhra Pradesh deftly coaxed his replies to the four corners but had to work harder to win his points, and was always trailing in the decider.
Son, by contrast, looked as if he might escape after losing the first game to Rajiv Ouseph, the English champion, and then leading 16-15 and 17-6 in the decider. But the crowd lifted Ouseph and two curious incidents in the last three points scuppered the Korean.
Retreating for a clear at 18-19 Son inexplicably fell; then on the second match point he allowed another Ouseph clear to drop, confident it had landed out.
However the line judge called it in, and when Son appealed to the video replay, there was a minute’s painfully tense wait before the contest finished, with everyone staring up at the giant screen. It showed the Ouseph’s shot just touching the back edge of the line.
Source: AFP