Unsinkable <a href="https://www.archysport.com/2022/02/badminton-euro-cadets-double-golden-lanyard/” title=”Badminton. Euro cadets: Double golden lanyard”>Alex Lanier. Out of breath, faced with match shuttlecocks and even sanctioned with a penalty point by the referee, the Frenchman (world No. 21) went to the end of himself, Friday evening, to make his way in the semi-finals of the Danish Open, a 750 category tournament, the second highest grade in the international badminton hierarchy.
The 19-year-old from Normandy got the better of Loh Kean Yew in the quarter-finals (21-18, 15-21, 24-22), after a 1h20 match which made him see all the colors. The Singaporean did not come out of nowhere: 11th in the world, Loh had won the world champion title in 2021. But nothing scares Lanier, who has already proven that he also belongs to the elite by winning the Japan Open in the month of August.
Delrue and Gicquel eliminated in mixed
Here is the Norman in the semi-finals in Odense, a performance that only one Frenchman had achieved before him: in 2016, Brice Leverdez also reached the last four in Denmark, the country of bad in Europe. To do better, we will have to beat the Japanese Koki Watanabe, world No. 13, on Saturday, an opponent against whom he has a balanced record (1 victory, 1 defeat).
He will indeed be the only Blue in the semi-finals, since Delphine Delrue and Thom Gicquel had fallen in the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles at the start of the day. The French logically lost to the world number 2, the Chinese Feng and Huang. If they had managed to take a set from them last week at the Finnish Open, the European champions did not find the solutions this time (21-11, 21-16).
