$20,000 Total Prize - Bay Badminton Championships 2008

Some draws here:

 

Because the same top players were in all the events, the organizers gave everyone more time to rest, forcing a ~2-3 hour delay by day's end, so I left a bit before some of the matches completed.

Eva Lee sprained her right ankle during the first set against Mona Santoso. As a result, she/Lili Zhou didn't put up much of an effort in their WD semi against Santoso/Johanna Lee. Santoso and Johanna Lee pretty much made a gentlemen's agreement in handing their WS semifinal match to Lee, I assume to conserve energy for their next XD match against one another.

Speaking of XD, Tony Gunawan and Santoso effectively steamrolled their way to the final. In light of Eva Lee's injury, her semi with Howard Bach against Halim Ho/Grace Peng appeared to be postponed (?). It didn't look like she was withdrawing, and there was extended conversation at the organizers' table. I would guess Ho/Peng vs Gunawan/Santoso tomorrow in the finals, (...but wouldn't count out Bach/Lee )

MS: neat to see Gunawan show off his old man legs He was too pooped after the three-setter against Arnold Setiadi and defaulted his match with Bach. Otherwise no surprises...

Both MD semis were entertaining, Gunawan/Ho were having too much fun to be trying too hard. Many, many long rallies of 10+ shots as they kept lifting for their young opponents (Rai/Hsu) to smash away to please the crowd.

Huge crowds today. Largest I've seen yet in northern California for a badminton contest (easily more in attendance than the GGBC tournaments, for instance) Good advertising, prime location near SF, and big prize money attracts audiences, it appears! I think these large crowds prevented Kwun from roaming about as much as usual, as usually I see him standing on stools for great angles on those action shots, but there were just too many people around today.

It really was a treat watching Gunawan/Ho up close and personal, and they were generous enough with their time to take a snapshot with me, so that further cements my fandom

 

Oops, here's the MS draw:

 

Looking at the first picture, I thought Zhu Lin is playing also.

 

The pics are here...

..as always, enjoyed the pics collection, kwun!....I hope the crowd watching had a blast of a time with all the top players playing there!

 

where is the final result?

 

^^Oh yeah..^^

..been wondering and planning to ask the same also?? I've checked on BBC website and i haven't seen them yet....Btw, were there players competing from outside the U.S.(e.g. Canada)??..

 

Did Halim do a KKK style hairdo??..

..(no, not the blonde hairdo, but last yr's bald look)..i was looking at the pics, above, and notice Halim was wearing some kind of head/hair covering/cap/beret in the pics. I was wondering, does he have a new hairdo??....

 

He has fairly long hair with a mohawk type stretch of blonde hair down the middle. Don't really know how to explain it.

 

what??]
tony gunawan and howard bach is also playing in the ms category also?

 

the front guy looks a bit like lin dan.

 

she looks a bit like Jun Jae Youn

 

*gasp*..

...really???..and he wore that cap/beret & didn't show it to you guys??..Anyway, go Halim!!..

george@chongwei, why so surprised that they played MS??..Of course they can do so; all of the players can play MS??..

 

Prize WOn

After i tallied the money collected after the tourney, here is the summary :

Raju Raj $ 3750
Howard Bach $ 3625 (1500 + 2125)
Johanna Lee $ 2750 (1500 + 1250)
Mona Santoso $ 2500 (1250 + 1250)
Bob Malaythong $ 2125
Tony Gunawan $ 2000 (1250 + 750)
Halim Haryanto $ 1250 (500 + 750)

Congratulations to all winners !!!

 

Johnana won WS and WD, and semi-finalist in XD. I thought she would be the one having the biggest payday.