Poland's badminton duo Robert Mateusiak and Nadiezda Zieba waited for four years to avenge their narrow loss to China's Xu Chen and Ma Jin in the mixed doubles quarterfinals at the 2012 London Games after staging the biggest upset of the 2016 Rio badminton tournament on Friday morning.

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The Polish pair outplayed the Chinese duo with a hard-fought 13-21, 21-9, 21-19 win in the group play stage. The match lasted for 60 minutes.

"What can I say? It's such a shame that this game did not finish like this four years ago," Mateusiak, 40, said after the match. "It is so sweet. Of course we are so happy because if we had lost this game we would have been out. It is my fifth and last Olympic Games and I don't want to finish like this."

After losing the first game, the winning tandem bounced back to win the second game, the Polish duo opened up a series of two-point leads only to be hauled in by Xu and Ma.

According to a report of Sina, the painful and disappointing memory of their defeat four years ago was not the only thing that the Polish players wanted to put to bed on Friday.

"I am so happy that I have 24 hours' break now because I am so tired. I could not sleep after the game yesterday, maybe only three hours. So now I need a good break, to take a physio and forget about this game," Mateusiak said.

Mateusiak made his Olympic debut at Sydney 2000 but has never progressed beyond the quarterfinals in men's or mixed doubles in five attempts to date, Xinhua reported.

Zieba, who will be retiring from the competition after their Rio campaign, commended the professional approach of her partner, who is eight years her senior.

TagsRobert Mateusiak, Nadiezda Zieba, Xu Chen, Ma Jin, bwf rankings, bwf, Rio Olympics 2016