Reuters - 1 hour 29 minutes ago
BIRMINGHAM, England, March 8 - World champion Lin Dan of China reached the All England final for the fifth year in succession on Saturday with a comfortable 21-14 21-14 victory over compatriot Bao Chunlai.
His opponent on Sunday will be another Chinese, fourth seed Chen Jin who beat second seed and former world number one Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia 21-18 21-18.
Top seeded Lin, winner in 2004, 2006 and 2007, produced a devastating spell from midway in the first game, when he trailed 14-12, to capture 10 points in succession and take control.
Bao, seeded three, managed to pull back from 9-2 down in the second to a more respectable 12-6 down but Lin eased home.
Chen, winner of last year's Swiss Open, will be making his first All England final appearance after ousting the in-form Lee.
The Malaysian had started favourite after beating Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat in the quarter-finals on Friday.
Lee made the early running but lost the advantage midway through the first game and struggled after that. He managed to save three match points from 20-15 down in the second game but finally succumbed to a powerful Chen smash.
Lee, who now heads for next week's Swiss Open, told reporters: "I didn't play well at all today. I was very slow. I don't know why. I'm very disappointed."
In the women's final, third seed Lu Lan will fly the flag for China after beating seventh seeded Xu Huaiwen of Germany 21-13 21-14.
She will meet either Tine Rasmussen of Denmark, who beat world champion Zhu Lin earlier in the week, or South Korea's Hwang Hye-youn.
Reuters - Sunday, March 9
BIRMINGHAM, England, March 8 - A capacity crowd turned out at the National Indoor Arena on Saturday to cheer one of their favourite daughters in her last All England tournament there.
But the dream of another honour for Olympic silver medallist Gail Emms and partner Nathan Robertson was sadly and quite swiftly dashed.
The duo produced a sub-standard display and lost their semi-final 21-18 21-15 to second seeds Nova Widianto and Liliyana Natsir of Indonesia.
Emms, 30, is set to retire after the Beijing Olympics and was playing in her last All Englands.
Robertson said: "The crowd support was fantastic but unfortunately we played well below our best and made a lot of simple errors when we weren't under pressure.
"You just can't do that at this stage of any tournament against a pair like that. They were just too good and we are extremely disappointed with our level of play today."
He added: "When you get to the semi-final of the All Englands you should be able to go out there fully focused and play up to your best standards but it was not meant to be today.
"Gail's very upset with how she played and I know I served terribly today and gave away quite a few points and it's not good enough really."
Robertson and Emms have become popular figureheads for badminton in England since their silver medal in Athens, topped up by the All England title in 2005 and world championship gold in 2006.
But there has been little success since then and the pair need an upturn ahead of the Beijing Games, starting with next week's Swiss Open.
"We have played very well there before so hopefully we can get back to playing very well quickly," said Robertson.
In Sunday's final, Widianto and Natsir meet holders Zheng Bo and Gao Ling of China.