Legends in Numbers: Part 4 – Jan Ø. Jørgensen

Made by Badminton Statistics

The 2020 Denmark Open marks the retirement from international badminton of one of the top players to come out of Europe in recent times. Hailing from the unassuming town of Svenstrup in northern Jutland of Denmark Jan Ø. Jørgensen rose through the ranks to become one of the most successful players of his generation.

While Jan didn’t quite reach the peak of compatriots such as Poul-Erik Høyer, Peter Gade and Viktor Axelsen he was one of the most consistent players on the tour for almost a decade, and reached a total of 30 Superseries semifinals, a number placing him 9th on the all-time list:

In fact, in the 2010s, only 2 players reached more Superseries semifinals:

Unfortunately for Jan, he often faltered towards the final stages of the tournaments, winning only 9 of the 30 semi-finals he played in – the lowest of anyone in the top-10 of that category. While Jan’s record in semi-finals isn’t the best, his 8 super-series final matches in the 2010s is still good enough to earn a 9th place in this category:

A testament to Jan’s consistently good performances is, that during the 2010s he spent more time in the top-10 of the rankings than any other players, except 3 of the very biggest legends:

The 3 players ahead of him in that category, were also often the ones where he struggled, especially against Lee Chong Wei. Against the Malaysian great he only managed a single win in 18 matches, while he also struggled against Chen Long winning only 2 of 12 matches. He did however end up with a respectable 6-9 score against Lin Dan:

Result-wise Jan will probably be most remembered for his wins in the Indonesia Open in 2014 and China Open in 2016 (getting one of his 2 wins against Chen Long in that final), both of which he is the only European men’s singles player to win.

China Open 2016

He was also part of the 2016 Danish Thomas Cup-winning team, won 3 Danish and 1 European championships, and won a bronze medal at the world championships in 2015 and also played in the All England final that year.