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Lin Dan is a Chinese badminton player. He is 35 years old, left-handed and he won the BWF World Championships five times: 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013 (and 2 times runner-up). He won not less than 65 titles in his career and he ended as the runner-up another 23 times. In 743 official matches, Lin Dan won 637 of them -- that's a whopping 85% winning percentage!
There is no doubt that Lin Dan is an excellent badminton player. Or at least he was one until yesterday.
In a latest setback for the Chinese, Lin Dan lost to World No. 64 Subhankar Dey to exit the SaarLorLux Open, a Super 100 tournament, in the round of 16.
Titles and stats in 2018
This year, his winning rate (85% in his whole career) is a little bit lower. He couldn't win more than 58% of his matches. Out of 34 matches, he could only win 20.
His number of titles also decreased. Out of 65 titles, only 1 title was in 2018 (and only 2 in 2017). Also runner-up places are decreasing: out of 23 times, only 1 was in 2018.
Recent tournament results
In recent tournaments, Lin Dan didn't get far. He didn't reach the quarter-finals more than 4 times this year and out of those 4 times, he lost the quarter-final 2 times.
An overview of the rounds in which Lin Dan lost in the BWF tournaments this year:
- Malaysia Masters (in round of 32)
- Indonesia Masters (in round of 32)
- German Masters (in quarter-finals)
- All England Open (lost the final)
- Asia Championships (in round of 32)
- New Zealand Open (won the final)
- US Open (in round of 32)
- Malaysia Open (in round of 16)
- Indonesia Open (in round of 32)
- World Championships (in round of 16)
- Japan Open (in quarter-finals)
- China Open (in round of 32)
- Korea Open (in round of 16)
- Denmark Open (in round of 16)
- French Open (in round of 32)
- SaarLorLux Open (in round of 16)
That means he reached...
- ... the title: 1 time
- ... runner up place: 1 time
- ... quarter-finals: 2 times
- ... round of 16: 5 times
- ... round of 32: 7 times
Is it time to end his career?
Because of those defeats, there has already been talks about the end of his career. Yesterday, Lin Dan himself cleared the air. In an interview after his first round victory at the SaarLorLux Open, he said he wants to play until the next Olympics (Tokyo, Japan in 2020).
