South Korean Son Wan-ho was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the men's badminton singles on Wednesday at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Badminton player Son Wan-ho (Park Hae-mook/The Korea Herald)
Chen Long of China defeated Son 2-1 (21-11, 18-21, 21-11) at Riocentro-Pavilion 4, stripping South Korea of its last player left in the singles.
On Tuesday in women's singles, Sung Ji-hyun lost her quarterfinals to world No. 1 Carolina Marin.
Chen scored the first three points of the opening game and quickly built an 11-3 advantage. He cruised to a 21-11 win.
Son matched Chen point for point in the next game, and took it to 18-18. From there, he scored three unanswered points to take the set and tie the match.
Chen came back with vengeance in the third game, going up 5-0 out of the gate. Son cut it to 8-5, but then Chen went on a 5-0 run. Whenever Son tried to draw closer, Chen pulled away even further and knocked out the South Korean 21-11.
South Korea is in danger of getting shut of badminton medals for the first time since the sport joined the Olympics in 1992.Four of their five doubles pairs, including the No. 1-ranked men's tandem of Lee Yong-dae and Yoo Yeon-seong, were eliminated in the quarterfinals. Only the fifth-ranked women's duo of Jung Kyung-eun and Shin Seung-chan advanced as far as the semifinals, and they have been relegated to Thursday's bronze medal match against Tan Yunating and Yu Yang of China, ranked No. 2. (Yonhap)
