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China tops badminton

Associated Press

May 26, 1987

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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.

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Beijing (AP) - China's Yang Yang outplayed an inconsistent Morten Frost of Denmark to win the match 15-2, 13-15, 15-12 on Sunday, capturing the men's singles in the fifth World Badminton Championships. Han Aiping of China defended her women's singles title, won at the last world championships in Calgary, Canada, in 1985, besting Chinese rival Li Lingwei 10-12, 11-4, 11-7. Playing before a near-capacity crowd at Beijing's capital gymnasium, Frost, 29, the top seed, was looking for his first world title after more than 200 career triumphs, including four All-England championships. However, he was playing catch-up all night to the 24-year-old lefthander Yang, who now has defeated Frost four times in nine meetings. The third-seeded Yang jumped to a 9-0 lead on his way to an easy first set victory, and was ahead 6-2 in the second set before Frost finally found his game, knotted the score at 13-all and went on to win.

In the third set, Yang was ahead 8-0 and 10-1 before Frost staged a strong comeback. The 1.9-meter (6-foot, 3-inch) Dane scored five straight points to pull within one at 13-12 before Yang won the last two before the raucously partisan Chinese crowd.

"I tried as hard as I could to win," Frost said. "I fought very hard and worked hard. I don't think I can be disappointed."

Several times during the match, Frost complained about the decisions of Chinese linesmen.

"The linesmen were good but they made a few mistakes," he said after the match.