Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat took aim at the Chinese yesterday after losing to arch rival Lin Dan in three enthralling sets, telling them to put a sock in it.

China's Lin Dan eyes the shuttlecock during his match against Indonesia's Taufik Hidayat during the men's team badminton event at Asian Games in Doha December 4, 2006. [Reuters]

Taufik accused 23-year-old Lin Dan of arrogance on Friday but with a second successive victory over the 26-year-old Indonesian in the men's team semi-final tie, the Chinese star again proved action was louder than words.

Indonesia's Taufik Hidayat returns a shot against China's Lin Dan in the men's badminton team league stage semi-finals at the 15th Asian Games in Doha December 4, 2006. [Reuters]

Taufik, known as the "bad boy" of the sport for his unpredictable temperament, refused to rise to questions about the reaction to his comments and instead turned his fire on the Chinese media.

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"I don't want to talk about him (Lin)," said Taufik, who is playing his last Asian Games.

"The Chinese press is always talking about me. Why talk? I just want to play. It's always the Chinese media that talk about me. What's the problem?"

Lin Dan also took a pot shot at the press but he did not lay it specifically at the feet of his domestic media.

"They (the media) just took a few words to create a story. Basically I don't really care," he said.

Taufik had only himself to blame for the loss and will rue conceding a comfortable first game lead of 13-9 to end up losing it 22-20.

He bounced back in the second to take it convincingly at 21-13 with both players entertaining the large crowd with some splendid rallies.

However, despite winning the first point of the rubber game, Taufik was always chasing the match and he went down 12-21.

There was little sign of the animosity between the two at the end as they shook hands with Lin Dan even patting Taufik on the back and both paid each other compliments afterwards.

China went on to win the contest 3-1.