In the fourth World Tour tournament in a row on European soil, several players had to pay tribute to the high intensity of the recent weeks. However, many European shuttlers are not done yet and will be fighting for a spot in the semifinals of the Madrid Spain Masters tomorrow. 

After a successful morning session with seven European wins, the afternoon session also provided some exciting matches for all badminton fans around the world. 

However, the most anticipated match of the day did not take place in today's round of 16. The home crowd’s favourite Carolina Marin was ready to step on court in Madrid but her opponent Malvika Bansod from India withdrew prior to the match.

Anders Antonsen, who showed some strong performances at the All England recently, had some trouble with Misha Zilbermann (Israel) but in the end won 21-13, 22-24, 21-10 in 65 minutes.

"Three games today. Obviously, I would have liked to close it in two. I had quite a good lead in the second, but in the end, he played very well in that second game, so I am just happy that I got through it and managed to secure the third game", said Antonsen and added: "Now I am ready for the quarterfinal."

One of the last matches of the day was the clash between Chloe Birch and Lauren Smith. “We knew it was going to be a tough match today,” said Birch after facing Margot Lambert and Anne Tran. “We know them quite well and they know us quite well, so we knew it was going to be difficult.”

The English pair gave it their all on court, bouncing back from losing the first game 13-21 to then win the second one and come back from being down in the decider to take the win. “We did not start particularly well, they had a lot of momentum. I am really proud of the way we changed the game and we fought hard to stay in that game. We’re so happy to close that out.”

Find today's results here.