Yonex French Open 2011 Mixed Doubles Finals: Joachim Fischer/Christinna Pedersen vs Xu Cheng/Ma Jin

Tournament Yonex French Open 2011 Finals (Super Series)

Location Paris, France

Date of Match 30 October 2011

Category Mixed Doubles

The mixed doubles final of the Yonex French Open 2011 featured a thrilling match between Joachim Fischer/Christinna Pedersen of Denmark and the world no.2 Xu Cheng/Ma Jin of China.

Deja Vu

In the Yonex Denmark Open 2011 (held a week before this tournament), the Danes faced the Chinese World no.1 in the semi finals, and the World no.2 in the finals.

It was the exact same scenario in this tournament!

Click here to watch their previous encounter in the Yonex Denmark Open 2011 finals

In this final of the Yonex French Open 2011; Jaochim and Christinna defeated Xu Cheng and Ma Jin AGAIN, in 2 straight games.

This gave them their very first title in the French Open.

Crowd Support

Most of the crowd at the Yonex French Open 2011 gave their support to the Danes.

You’ll notice it through the applause from the crowd. I would say this was a contributing factor to why the Danes performed so well in this tournament.

A New Rival?

The Danish pair had defeated both the world no.1 and no.2 mixed doubles pair TWICE, in 2 consecutive tournaments!

Are they the nemesis for the Chinese national mixed doubles team?

Performance During the Game

Both pairs started slow as they were just getting use to the courts. Unforced errors were made one after another.

The rallies became more exciting when both sides started to find their form.

We seldom see men rushing forward to the net in standard mixed doubles play in badminton.

However, whenever Joachim saw the opportunity, he rushed forward! He won the rally most of the time, which made his style of play very effective.

Although the score was very tight in the first game, we could clearly see that the Danes were dominating the rallies.

Negative Emotions and Mind Games

Xu Cheng and Ma Jin were becoming concerned about losing to the Danish pair again.

If you observed clearly, there were some slight arguments that went on between the Chinese pair on the court between rallies.

Joachim and Christinna worked so hard to force Ma Jin to the back of the court.

At the same time, the Chinese pair worked so hard to get back to their favourite formation, with Xu Cheng at the back and Ma Jin at the front.

However, the Chinese fell into a psychological trap when the Danes were so successful at making Ma Jin work from the back of the court.

Xu Cheng became too eager to attack, which forced many errors out of him.

A Rare Mistake

At the climax of the match, the Chinese panicked and were at the brink of losing the match.

The Chinese pair made a major mistake that I had never seen before in major badminton tournaments.

Xu Cheng and Ma Jin got into each other’s way and their bodies clashed at the rear court!

Maybe both players were just too eager to attack and win the rally. This ‘one man show’ tactic is highly unfavourable in badminton doubles.