LIN DAN will play for a sixth All-England Championship in the final after overcoming Chinese teammate Xue Song 18-21, 21-15, 21-9 Saturday.

    Another much younger teammate awaits, Tian Houwei, against whom Lin has a 6-0 record including in two other finals.

    Another Chinese star, Wang Shixian, will try to win her third All-England title and won’t have to face top-ranked Carolina Marin, after the defending champion lost to Nozomi Okuhara of Japan a third straight time.

    Lin, 10 years older than Xue at 32, came back from a game down for a third straight match. After losing a tight first game, Lin was like an incoming tide, Xue unable to resist being slowly washed over. Lin moved his teammate with such comfort that Xue’s effort to keep up caused him cramps in his right leg midway through the last game, and a need for ankle-to-knee strapping.

    The All-England final is Lin’s ninth, and first since his fifth title in 2012. If he wins, the sixth will tie him for third most in tournament history beside Frank Devlin of Ireland, who starred in the 1920s. Only Rudy Hartono of Indonesia (eight in the 1960s-70s) and Erland Kops of Denmark (seven titles in the 1950s-60s) have won more.

    As for those slow starts, he gave more credit to his opponents fighting better rather than anything he was doing wrong.

    Lin will take a 15-match winning streak into the final against Tian, eight years younger, and unfazed.

    “We are teammates so there are no secrets between us,” Tian said. “The way we play is quite similar as we are both left-handed.”

    Tian, seeded eighth, has advanced under the radar in the half of the field that became open after the first-round exit of three-time winner Lee Chong Wei.

    Tian beat the unseeded Hans-Kristian Vittinghus of Denmark 15-21, 21-14, 21-14. Like Lin, he has won his last three matches from a game down.

    Marin’s discontent ran deep after her 11-21, 21-16, 21-14 semifinal loss. The Spaniard was bidding to become the first European woman to retain the title in almost 80 years.

    “I’m disappointed with my performance, I made too many mistakes,” Marin said.

    (SD-Agencies)