Former Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat exited meekly from the Asian Games badminton tournament on Friday, dashing hopes for a repeat of the 2006 grudge match with bitter rival Lin Dan.
Hidayat enraged the Chinese camp at the Doha Games by calling Lin "arrogant" and unpopular on the tour, then rubbed salt in the wounds by beating the Beijing Olympic champion in a tense final.
The Indonesian world number three failed to fire during his quarter-final match against South Korea's Park Sung-Hwan, and surrendered 21-15, 21-16, clearing Lin for a potential showdown with top-ranked Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia in the final.
"I didn't feel very good today. I had a bad game, I don't want to give any excuses for why I lost. I just lost," Hidayat said after the defeat.
"I don't feel anything right now," he added.
Lin was scheduled to play Vietnam's Nguyen Tien Minh in another quarter-final later on Friday, while Lee faces a test against world number five Chen Jin in a semi-final on Saturday.
