Vanquished Viktor out to seek redemption at Malaysian Masters

CHENGDU: Expect an ‘‘angry’’ Viktor Axelsen to come out firing in the Malaysian Masters from May 21-26 at the Axiata Arena in Bukit Jalil.

The world No. 1 singles shuttler has not managed to match the high standards that he has set for himself so far this year and suffered another blow when he was part of the Danish team that went down 1-3 to Taiwan in the last eight of the Thomas Cup Finals at the Hi-Tech Zone Sports Center in Chengdu on Friday.

Axelsen went down fighting 19-21, 21-14, 19-21 to 34-year-old Chou Tien-chen in the first singles and his second seeded team failed to recover after that.

The Dane was angry with himself for not delivering the crucial first point.

“I feel really angry right now, to be honest,” said Axelsen.

“I tried to stay composed (during the match) but it didn’t work that well.

“It was a tight match, really high intensity.

‘‘Chou played a great match, he deserved to win for sure.

“I’m of course disappointed. In the first game, I should have taken advantage of the big lead I had.

“I took my foot off the pedal. That was really inexperienced of me,” added Axelsen.

Axelsen felt that his preparations before the team meet were not the best and it contributed to the defeat.

“I could not prepare very well for the tournament,” said Axelsen.

“Honestly, I was surprised that I won all my matches in the group stage.

“I will try to do better in my next tournament.”

The 30-year-old has also not been at his best in individual tournaments this year.

Axelsen failed to defend his title in the European Championships last month after suffering a shock defeat at the hands of world No. 20 Toma Popov of France.

The reigning Olympic champion is also yet to win an individual title this year and faces a tough fight to successfully defend his crown in the Paris Games in July.

Axelsen will be out to end his title drought in the Malaysian tourney and get a boost ahead of the Olympics.

The Dane is one of seven top 10 players in the world to have registered their names for the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour Super 500 event.

The others are Indonesia’s world No. 3 Jonatan Christie, world No. 7 Anthony Ginting, Axelsen’s teammate Anders Antonsen (No. 4), China’s world No. 6 Li Shifeng, Thailand’s reigning world champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn (No. 8) and homester Lee Zii Jia (No. 10).