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The dust is finally settled.  The China favorite double pair is out of this tournament after a shocking lost to South Korean pair Ko Sung-Hyun and Yeon-Seong in straight set 20-22 16-20.  Chinese hopes in the men's doubles now rest on Chai Biao and Guo Zhendong, who qualified second in Group A.

Datuk Lee Chong Wei came through a tight match 24-22, 21-14 against Danish veteran Peter Gade, while "Super Dan" made short work of Japan's Kenichi Tago 21-11, 21-13.  Crucially, both players topped their groups after the three round-robin games, meaning they will avoid each other in Saturday's semi-finals. World number one Lee, who has won all three editions of badminton's season finale, will face Chinese second seed Chen Long, while Lin is up against long-time foe Gade.

Second seeded in BWF ranking, Lin Dan, crushed Tago in just 42 minutes to stand just two matches from badminton's first "Super Grand Slam" by winning all nine of the sport's premier titles.

Yet, the unfortunate Indonesian Taufik Hidayat, the 2004 Olympic gold-medallist, crashed 21-13, 21-7 from China's Chen Long.  Hopefully, Taufik's slamming performance will not continue to the Olympics.

Women's top seed Wang Yihan of China knocked out Germany's Juliane Schenk in three games to finish top of Group A. She was joined in the semi-finals by Danish player Tine Baun, who beat South Korea's Sung Ji-Hyun.

China's Wang Xin topped Group B despite a surprise loss to India's Saina Nehwal, who shrugged off some indifferent form with a 21-17, 22-20 win to book her place in the last four.

Hot Chinese favorites Wang Xiaoli and Yang Yu looked odds-on for the women's doubles crown after they swept into the semi-finals with three wins at the top of Group A.

Yes, Lee Chong Wei finally wins over Lin Dan.  However, it is not on the badminton court, but in the fan's hearts.  The contest was held by BWF to find 2011 badminton player of the year contest.

The top four highest votes for the male and female Player of the Year fan vote campaign are as follows:

2011 BWF Male Player of the Year

Lee Chong Wei – 34% of votes
Lin Dan – 22% of votes
Cai Yun/Fu Haifeng – 16% of votes
Lee Yong-dae/Jung Jae-sung – 14% of votes

2011 BWF Female Player of the Year

Liliyana Natsir – 78% of votes
Wang Xiaoli/Yu Yang – 6% of votes
Wang Shixian – 5% of votes
Wang Yihan – 4% of votes

Fans appeal and the role model quality of a player are of growing importance in the criteria of the BWF Player of the Year award. 

The decision of the 2011 Male and Female Players of the Year Awards will be taken at the BWF Council Meeting currently taking place in Queenstown, New Zealand.  The voting results will potentially influence the decision of the awards especially if it goes down to a tight two-horse race, your vote can make a difference!

The winners of the two prestigious awards will be announced at the Li Ning BWF World Superseries Finals in Liuzhou, China, next week and the winners will receive the awards over an Awards presentation ceremony at the event.

After being absent from Sea Games 2011, Lee Chong Wei is looking to revenge his pride to Lin Dan in the semi final stage of Hong Kong Super Series 2011. Both super players won convincingly on their quarter final matches.  Malaysian top seed Lee Chong Wei rooted India's Ajay Jayaram 21-16, 21-13, while Chinese Olympic champion Lin Dan beat Shon Wan-Ho of South Korea 21-15, 21-18.

In August Lee, who is looking to claim a remarkable seventh Super Series title this year, let slip two match points as Lin crawled off the canvas to claim his fourth world title in London.  But Lee will be a favorite to claim the honours in Hong Kong following an indifferent recent run by Lin, who has again courted controversy by forfeiting matches against Chinese team-mates through injury or illness.

The winner will face a final against either second seed Chen Long, who defeated Indian qualifier R.M.V. Gurusaidutt 21-13, 23-21, or fellow Chinese Chen Jin, a 21-18, 21-13 victor over Denmark's Peter Gade.

Hong Kong fans will hope there is no repeat of 2007, when Chen Jin pulled out of his semi-final with Lin with a sudden back injury.

In the women's draw, Chinese top seed Wang Yihan reached Saturday's semis with a 22-20, 21-10 win over Japan's Ai Goto, and will face team-mate Wang Xin who downed Taiwan's Cheng Shao-Chieh 21-17, 22-20.

Danish seventh seed Tine Baun beat India's Saina Nehwal 21-16, 21-15 to set up a semi-final with Wang Shixian, the second seed from China.

In the men double, American hopeful Tony/ Bach could not match up to the first ranked China pair,  Fu Haifeng/ Cai Yun.  They lost 13-21 and 16-21 in 27 minutes.

In this event, none of Indonesia players passed the quarter final stage.  The last hope of Indonesia, Chandra/ Gunawan lost in 3 matches to Korean secondary pair, Ko/Yoo 9-21, 18-21 and 15-21.

Lin Dan is undoubtedly one of badminton’s greatest ever players. He has won 13 World Superseries titles since the series took off in 2007, winning only one title in 2010 as well as in the 2011 season so far. 

Though the Chinese ace does have four world titles and the gold medals from the 2008 Olympics and 2010 Asian Games among his vast collection of winner’s trophies, but he has pulled up injured once again last weekend, citing a toe injury just as he was on the verge of beating Japan’s Kenichi Tago in the Yonex French Open men’s singles semi-finals.

This was the sixth time the former world number 1, who has since slipped to third behind Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei and teammate Chen Long in the world rankings, has failed to finish a tournament in ten months.

While Chong Wei, on the other hand, has been displaying incredible finesse having bagged six 2011 World Superseries titles. The Malaysian has been playing an average of 16 international tournaments in a calendar year since 2007, and will be competing in at least 17 international tournaments in 2011 should he follow through his 2011 World Superseries schedule. 

Lin Dan, who plays an average of 10 tournaments a year, is currently also on schedule to compete in the remaining two World Superseries. And the Chinese will therefore still stand a chance to close in on the World Superseries titles gap between the two "maestros" of the men's singles event.

But it will be a huge drawback for any tournament and a major disappointment for fans to witness one of the sport's most extraordinary talent continue his recent spiral. As disappointed as many are of Lin Dan's current spiral, science would stand up to the realities of the human biological condition in professional sport, and the immortalisation of professional athletes who have become inevitable subjects of entertainment in this modern age of the sport.

This could be Lin Dan's dilemma. How is his outlook in the 2012, Olympics & beyond?

It was the peak of the 2011 French Open.  Many people still could not believe the number one player in the world could lost so easy to second tier player, Chen Long from China.  The tragic was even more convincing in which Chen Long beat Lee Chong Wei in straight set last week in 2011 Denmark Open.  This evening the fierce battle began again between this two ultimate show down.  However, this time Lee Chong Wei showed his supremacy by winning the match with the score of 23-21 17-21 21-15.

On the other court, another exciting match was also happening between Kenichi Tago (Japan) and Lin Dan (China). Lin Dan was leading Japan’s Kenichi Tago 25-23, 18-15 when he injured himself, thus handing an unexpected final appearance to the former All England finalist

This is the fifth time in the past 10 months that the reigning Olympic and Asian Games gold medalist has had to concede a walkover or retire hurt in OSIM BWF World Super Series tournaments.

Lin Dan’s run of bad luck began last December when he withdrew from the quarter-finals of the Hong Kong and China Opens just before playing Vietnam’s Nguyen Tien Minh and Chen Long respectively.

Then in January, he pulled out of the Proton Malaysia Open Super Series with an abdominal muscle injury when he was due to play Chen Long.

The biggest blow came in the final of the Singapore in June when he had to hand the title to teammate Chen Jin as he felt ill after drinking too much cold water after his semi-final victory over Peter Gade.

Last month, at the Japan Open, the skin of his left foot came off after a tough match against Chen Jin and Lin Dan had to give a walkover to Chen Long in the semi-finals.

Meanwhile, China will keep the women’s singles and doubles title after dominating the semi-finals of both events.

In the women’s singles, world No. 3 Wang Xin, who is chasing back-to-back Super Series titles, came back from an opening game loss to defeat Thailand’s Porntip Buranaprasertsuk.

Porntip, who won her country’s first ever women’s singles Superseries title when she won the India Open in May, stunned her Chinese opponent with a 21-15 victory in the opening game.

However, that win took a lot out of Porntip and she was a spent force as Wang Xin cruised to the next two games, winning 21-4, 21-7 to book her ticket to the final.

Waiting for her in Sunday’s title decider is Li Xuerui, who ousted giantkiller Tai Tzu Ying in straight games. Tzu Ying, who defeated world No. 1 and world champion Wang Yihan in the quarter-finals, had no answer to Li Xuerui’s attacking play and fell 21-8, 21-19.

Her victory meant China will win the women’s singles title for the ninth time in 10 OSIM BWF World Superseries tournaments this year. The only time they missed out was at the India Open which they didn’t enter.

Likewise, Chinese women have won the doubles crown eight times out of the nine previous Superseries tournaments and on Saturday, world champions Wang Xiaoli-Yu Yang and Tian Qing-Zhao Yunlei made sure the crown will stay in Chinese hands when they won their respective semi-final matches.

Wang Xiaoli-Yu Yang, survived a wobble in the second game before beating Japanese third seeds Mizuki Fujii-Reika Kakiiwa 21-8, 22-20. Tian Qing-Zhao Yunlei, meanwhile, received a walkover from South Korea’s Ha Jung Eun-Kim Min Jung.

Lin Dan, who was hoping to bounce back after disappointing performances at the Li Ning China Masters and Yonex Open Japan, had no answer to Hong Kong’s Wong Wing Ki’s, aggressive play.

Surprisingly, this was the first meeting between the players in an Open tournament and Wing Ki stunned Lin Dan with some brilliant smashes and nimble net play.

The unseeded Hong Kong star registered a three-game 21-10, 17-21, 21-19 victory in 58 minutes to leave the crowd stunned that one of the games’ greatest ever players will not be contesting for the chance to become a four-time winner in Denmark.

The fans, however, will be delighted that defending champion Jan O Jorgensen and veteran Peter Gade, playing in his final Denmark Open before retirement, made it to the quarter-finals.

They will be joined by world junior champion Viktor Axelsen, who will meet Gade for a place in the semi-finals.

Jorgensen, who defeated China’s Du Pengyu on Thursday, faces his sternest test thus far when he lines up against China’s Chen Long, who is searching for this third consecutive OSIM BWF World Superseries title following wins in China and Japan.

The tightest contest could be between world No. 1 Lee Chong Wei and 2010 world champion Chen Jin in the top half of the draw. The Malaysian, who has reached the final of every Open tournament he has played in this year, has an 8-2 winning record against his Chinese opponent.

The other semi-final is between Japan’s Sho Sasaki and Wing Ki.

Baun, who won this tournament two years ago when she was still known as Tine Rasmussen – she changed her name after getting married – joined the list of players to be beaten by the young brigade in this tournament.

Earlier in the day, former world and Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat in the men’s singles and India’s Saina Nehwal in the women’s singles, were defeated by 17-year-olds Axelsen and Tai Tzu Ying respectively.

In Baun’s case, it was Thailand’s two-time world junior champion Inthanon Ratchanok, also 17, who dominated en-route to a comprehensive 21-16, 21-15 victory in only 37 minutes.

Baun’s, defeat means the three players the dominant Chinese female players fear the most – Baun, Germany’s Juliane Schenk and Nehwal – all failed to reach the quarter-finals.

China’s three Wangs – world champion Wang Yihan, who won here last year, Wang Shixian and Wang Xin – all reached the last eight, as did compatriots Li Xuerui and 2006 champion Jiang Yanjiao.

Tzu Ying will meet Inthanon for a place in the semi-finals while South Korea’s Sung Ji Hyun is the other non-Chinese in the last four.