rival Lin Dan will play for history after setting up their third All England Open badminton final Saturday. Top-ranked Chong Wei needs a win over the greatest player of this generation to become the first man to win three successive All Englands in the 33-year Open era. Lin, through to his eighth final in nine years, will bid to become the first person to win the world's oldest tournament five times in the era. Neither man was in any danger in the semifinals in a raucous National Indoor Arena. Chong Wei defeated No. 7 Lee Hyun-il of South Korea 21-19, 21-18 and Lin put away No. 8 Kenichi Tago of Japan 21-18, 21-17. Women's No. 1 and world champion Wang Yihan outlasted defending champ Wang Shixian 20-22, 21-18, 21-18 in their 85-minute, all-Chinese match. The final will be all-Chinese, too, for the first time in six years after Li Xuerui overcame unseeded Tai Tzu-ying of Taiwan 19-21, 21-16, 21-10. No. 5-ranked Li will appear in her first major final. Lin downplayed talk of history, and instead spoke like someone who could be playing his last All Englands. “I don't care about becoming a five-time champion, being champion once is enough for me,” Lin said. “Me and Chong Wei have a lot of history and I just want a good memory. “The Big Four (Lin, Chong Wei, Taufik Hidayat and Peter Gade) are playing less and less matches between us, and Taufik and Peter are retiring (after the Olympics), and I'm not sure how long me and Chong Wei will keep playing. Badminton is not always about wins and losses, so I want to enjoy myself.” Chong Wei will take a 17-match unbeaten start to the season into Sunday's final, and while he beat Lin in their most recent match, the Korea Open final in January, he has never beaten Lin twice in a row. In fact, Lin has lost successive matches to an opponent only six times in his career, and not in the last four years. Wang Yihan and Wang Shixian traded wins over the last five years and the No. 1 ranking over the last six months of 2011. And there was little between them in their first match in almost 14 months. Wang Yihan led 19-13 but relaxed and ended up blowing three game points as Wang Shixian rallied to claim the first game in 31 minutes when Wang Yihan netted. Wang Yihan led again for much of the second, and finally won it on her fifth game point after nearly an hour. In the last game, Wang Yihan blasted back from 13-8 down to finally win on her fourth match point when Wang Shixian lobbed long. Wang Yihan won the title in 2009, lost in the 2010 final and missed last year's event.
