NANNING, China — Malaysian badminton player Teo Ee Yi was bloodied and shaken after his doubles partner accidentally smashed him in the face with his shin during their Sudirman Cup quarterfinal defeat to Japan on Friday.

The 26-year-old lay prone on the court floor for nearly 10 minutes with a gashed chin, blood pouring down his neck, with the men's doubles clash against top seeds Japan locked at 19-19 in the deciding game.

Teo suffered the injury after he and playing partner Ong Yew Sin both dived in an attempt to retrieve the same shot, and Ong's trailing left leg caught Teo in the face.

Although Teo eventually climbed off the floor to continue with a large bandage on his chin, the Malaysian duo appeared to have lost their edge.

They saved a second match point against Takeshi Kamura and Keigo Sonoda, but could not ultimately prevent going down to a dramatic defeat spread over 95 thrilling minutes.

Teo afterwards refused to blame the attritional three-game loss on the injury, but said: "It's quite a big cut and I think it's going to need stitches."

The painful defeat put Japan 1-0 up in the tie in the Chinese city of Nanning and on the way to a semifinals meeting with Indonesia.

Men's world No. 1 Kento Momota and Nozomi Okuhara triumphed in their singles matches to give Japan — who have never won the Sudirman Cup —- an unassailable 3-0 lead.

Indonesia booked their place in the last four with a narrow 3-2 win over Taiwan. Saturday's other semifinal is between the hosts China, who are the hot favorites to win the mixed-team world championship for an 11th time, and Thailand.

On Thursday, schoolgirl An Se-Young's fairytale run came to a tearful end on as holders South Korea crashed out to Thailand in the quarterfinals. An only turned 17 in February but is already making a name for herself, winning the New Zealand Open earlier this month and then beating Taiwan's world No. 1 Tai Tzu-ying on Wednesday.

But the teenager, ranked 50th, finally ran out of steam against former world champion Ratchanok Intanon, going down 21-15, 21-17 in 53 minutes as Thailand defeated South Korea 3-1. Ratchanok's victory sealed the tie for the Thais and she fell to her knees, before being mobbed by her jubilant teammates.

The beaten An was overcome with emotion afterwards in the press interview area, as she had been after beating top-ranked Tai a day earlier.

"I think I was a bit nervous today so I had problems adjusting to the game," said the teenager, denying that she was tired from the exertion of bursting onto the scene in recent weeks. "No, that's not the case, I just didn't perform."

The Koreans stunned 10-time champions China in the last edition of the Sudirman Cup, in 2017, but were missing their top man and woman singles players in Nanning.

China will be strongly fancied to defeat Thailand in the semifinals on Saturday in front of their home crowd. The hosts reached the last four with a 3-1 win over Denmark. The Danes grabbed their solitary point thanks to former world champion Viktor Axelsen.

Now ranked third in the world after injuries derailed his progress, the strapping 25-year-old defeated reigning Olympic champion Chen Long in a high-quality encounter. Chen went down 21-11, 21-18 but Denmark's hopes were short-lived. — AFP