Facing the world’s number two, Jeanine Cicognini from Switzerland probably thought she had a pretty much impossible draw. But even though she did lose her first match at Denmark Open, she delivered the biggest surprise so far in the first ladies’ singles matches. The Swiss player, who is number 35 in the world ranking, managed to shake the top seeded player Wang Yihan and forced her to play three sets in her first match.
The first set was very close up until the end where Cicognini surprisingly pulled away and won 21-18.

-I was leading the set in the beginning, but towards the end of the set I lost focus which is why I lost that set, says Wang Yihan.
However, in the second and third set the Chinese star got her game together and won easily 21-12. 21-4. And even though most people probably expect to see her in and Tine Baun facing each other in final, Wang Yihan has not thought about that match too much yet.

-I will take one match at the time and try to win them one by one. If I do play Tine in the final it will be hard to say who is the favourite. She is playing on home ground, so of course she has an advantage but I hope to see many badminton fans in the hall supporting me as well, she says.

Wang Yihan was untill recently number one on the world rankings. But lately she has been struggling to maintain her high level, which meant that she had to hand her top rank over to fellow Chinese player Wang Xin. In her second match at Denmark Open Wang Yihan will be up against Bulgarian Linda Zechiri.

Asian ladies show strength.
Wang Yihan was not the only Asias favourite to secure herself a place in the second round of the tournament. The other seeded player who played this morning was Pui Yin Yip from Hong Kong, who, as number 12 in the world is seeded seven in Denmark Open. And like in the case of top seeded Wang Yihan, Yip’s first match against german Karin Schnasse was closer than expected. Karin Schnasse managed to put the favourite under pressure and was leading in the beginning of both sets. But even though the German got off to a good start, Yip managed to catch up and win the game 21-19 21-19.

-It was a close match, and it was a shame that I wasn’t able to pull through at then end. I feel that I played a bit to aggressively at the end of the match. Maybe if I had played a little more patiently I could have won, says Schnasse. 

Schnasse’s fellow german player Carola Bott also had to see herself beaten by an Asian player. In three sets Tzu Ying Tai from Chinese Taipei got rid of yet another Euopean player.

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