(PART 1 : THE SPONSORSHIP DEAL) Yes indeed, folks. We actually had our own BC World SuperSeries tournament here in Malaysia. It was held at Michael Badminton Academy in Puchong last night, all the way to the wee hours of Sunday morning. As with most other BC tournaments, funding, planning, player registration and execution of the event went about at breakneck speed. Despite OSIM's, ahem, refusal to cover sponsorship, BC's "popularity" brought us sponsorship from one of our ertswhile private badminton academys. Thus this event came to be known as Michael Badminton Academy BC Malaysia Open SuperSeries 2011, in honour of our one and only sponsor. It all started immediately after Semifinals Day after LCW tore Chen Long apart. Loh, hcyong, spchu and I converged at the cafetaria, to be joined by davey (Dev Sukumar of Badzine India fame), Michael (who owns Michael Badminton Academy) and Malaysia's own ex-Thomas Cupper of the 60s, 75 year old Allan Teoh. After exchanging pleasantries and small talk, Michael and loh (acting as BC leader) struck a sponsorship cum challenge deal for the BC tournament, to be held no earlier than 10 pm on the same day. An ideal choice of the start time too, because as expected, everyone arrived late. The challenge, was for a BC nominated player to beat Michael in one on one badminton combat, with Michael holding a chair on his left hand while playing. (TO BE CONTINUED)
(PART 2 : THE PREPARATION) Our BC team had only 3 hours to prepare for battle. To make it worse, our energy levels had been used up to push the Danes, Taufik Hidayat and LCW to victory. To rectify the situation, we wasted no time going to the Steven's Corner OUG restaurant for dinner. It took us until 9 pm to finish off 20 satay sticks, a plate of nasi impit, 2 plates of cheese naan, and 2 plates of tandoori chicken, before we pronounced ourselves fit as the mature or senior citizens we are. We then split up. spchu, loh and hcyong returned home to change to playing garments while I had to do emergency shopping for track pants at the nearby Giant hypermarket. We converged at Michael's Badminton Academy at 10:20pm. The place was imposing, with 32 courts arranged in four rows of eight. Michael arranged for us to play in the "international standard" rubber court. We then wasted no time warming up. Let the battle begin. (TO BE CONTINUED)
Now that the final is done and dusted ......... (PART 3 : ON COURT PERSONALITIES) As soon as we stepped on court, our personality changed. We were no longer overgrown, overaged and overweight regular folks. Instead, we personified our on court heroes. There's Cai Loh, whose speciality is diving and rolling down.on court without ever getting back up again until the rally is over. Definitely not Cai Yun material. There's also Jung Jae (hc)Yong, without the customary splits and powerful leaping smashes of Jung Jae Sung. Then there's our version of Harry Potter, Chen Hung (sp)Chu. Just not quite as intelligent as Chen Hung Ling at placing shuttles. There's also BC's version of Fu Haifeng, who is spchu's good friend. Except that the real Fu Haifeng is much skinnier and taller. And then there was overweight Zhang (Abe)Deng, the equivalent of Zhang Jun. Who is also quite overweight nowadays. And like Zhang Jun, Zhang (Abe)Deng is good on the flick serve, not too good at the net though. But our star player is davey Padukone, who is built almost to the level of Prakash Padukone in 1980. Without the muscles and additional height, of course. And he was trained personally by Allan Teoh to beat Michael the (Chair)Man, to no avail. More to that later. The first match was about to begin, between Cai Loh/Zhang (Abe)Deng vs Jung Jae (hc)Yong/Chen Hung (sp)Chu. (TO BE CONTINUED)
Of course you guys didn't know the event. We didn't either, until around 7 pm while mingling at the stadium cafe. Hence the reason for me to go buy emergency track pants before 10 pm.
(PART 4 : THE BATTLE COMMENCES) The first match was between Cai Loh/Zhang (abe)Deng vs Jung Jae (hc)Yong/Chen Hung (sp)Chu. On paper, this was a mismatch. Not only were the Chinese persona pair more, err, experienced. Their personas (Cai Yun and Zhang Jun) were both Olympic and/or World Champs. The best that their persona opponents could show was Jung Jae Sung's All-England victory in 2008. The first few points were finely traded, all the way to the halftime interval at 11-10 in the aged pair's favour. To their dismay, the rules were modified to allow no breaks, forcing the Chinese persona pair at a disadvantage. But then, miracles happen, you know ...... Not being given an interval break galvanized the old geezers into a frenzy of points, reaching 20-15 with a series of well-placed flick serves before dropping two "mercy points" ala LCW vs Taufik Hidayat in the Malaysia SuperSeries final. But a whack from BC's version of Harry Potter struck the net, giving victory to the "Olympic and/or World" champs, 21-17. "Incensed" at the defeat, Jung Jae Yong/Chen Hung Chu wanted a quick 2nd game. Cai Loh duly obliged, but not before exploiting a loophole in the tournament rules to substitute a wheezing Zhang Deng with spchu's southpaw friend Fu Haifriend, another World Champion persona. A very astute move ...... wakakakaka. This second match started much like the first, but points were traded in threes. It seemed that the Korean/Taipei personas were going to gain revenge, but using his "legendary" left arm to good effect, Fu Haifriend whacked away during the critical points with Cai Loh standing absolutely still, catching his breath. It worked, and the Chinese persona triumphed yet again, 21-18. (TO BE CONTINUED)
(PART 5 : THE MASTER COMETH) By the end of the second match, davey Padukone, Michael Lee and Allan Teoh (acting as davey Padukone's coach) came to join the battle. The coach wasted no time putting davey Padukone thru his paces, with limbering and strokeplay exercises. Very important given that davey Padukone has been out of any un-competitive badminton tournaments for the last 4 years. Davey Padukone with his stretching exercises, mirror image of Prakash Padukone Michael, however, was keen to show why he is the master of the place. Still playing top level badminton for his age, Michael immediately engaged Cai Loh as his partner, to try inflict more permanent damage on the reputation of Jung Jae Yong/Chen Hung Chu. This plan almost immediately backfired. Not having the lung capacity of his namesake, Cai Yun, Cai Loh struggled to move from corner to corner. Michael wasn't able to assist as Cai Loh was almost always in the way. It was a breeze for Jung/Chen, notching their first victory with a comprehensive score of 21-15. Pics of the match here ..... Michael Lee and Cai Loh in action. Notice Cai Loh bowing, about to faint in second picture. Jung Jae Yong serving for the match (TO BE CONTINUED)
(PART 6 : THE MASTER STRIKES BACK) You know you don't get to screw the Master on his home turf without getting any payback. And with a big fat bonus too ........ Jung Jae Yong and Chen Hung Chu found that out bigtime ........... Disappointed that his mercurial home record had been broken by the BC pretenders, Master Michael Lee proceeded to "dismiss" his ineffective covering partner Cai Loh. He then broke new grounds in the history of badminton, by challenging Jung Jae Yong/Chen Hung Chu for a rematch of 2 against 1, while changing the boundary of the court to a singles court only. But what could Jung and Chen say? Michael was "the Boss". More powerful that Dr Kang, the BWF President. The game began at a slow pace. Complacency must have set into Jung Jae Yong and Chen Hung Chu, thinking that Master Michael was easy pickings. But Nooooooo, without a brick of a Cai Loh on court and having the court measurements reduced by a feet, Master Michael felt very relaxed, sending well placed shots all over the back corners and making the pair work overtime. Midway thru the game, Jung and Chen must have forgotten about the boundaries of play. Most of their placement shots landed just wide of the singles court. Which would have won them points during international doubles competitions ........ With such "unfair advantages", Master Michael took it home 21-12 in double quick time. Pics below: Playing in a singles court rules, Master Michael could afford to serve long A strategy which kept Jung Jae Yong and Chen Hung Chu at the back the whole time (TO BE CONTINUED)
(PART 7 : THE BC CHALLENGE) Now we come to the most interesting part, the BC Challenge. Basically, BC needed to nominate their "star player" to a one-on-one duel with Master Michael. Except that he was now elevated in rank from Master to Chairman. Like Chairman Mao. Chairman Michael was so confident, he gave the BC challenger three advantages:- 1. Chairman Michael would play while holding a plastic chair in his left hand. 2. The BC Challenger only needs to score 5 pts to win. 3. The BC Challenger shall have the benefit of coaching from Malaysian Thomas Cup veteran, Allan Teoh. After a minute of deliberation, we agreed to nominate Davey Padukone as BC Challenger. Since Davey works in Bangalore, a little bit of that Prakash Padukone magic would have rubbed onto him ...... or so we thought. Davey Padukone worked tirelessly and indeed, in some respects he did look like a wilder version of Prakash Padukone. Picture here: Davey Padukone, about to fire blanks ....... wakakakaka But by the time he reached his 3rd point, Chairman Michael was already at 15. Coach Allan Teoh immediately called for emergency timeout. Picture here: Coach Allan Teoh in a council of war with his star player Whatever he said to Davey Padukone, it didn't work out. Davey was just unable to push Chairman Michael to the floor, or drop the shuttle low enough for Chairman Michael to drop his chair. Chairman Michael easily romped home, 21-3. Here are pictures of his superhuman feat ...... wakakakaka Performance worthy of the Guinness Book of Records (TO BE CONTINUED)
(PART 8 : THE REST OF THE MATCHES) Having redeemed his pride, Chairman Michael was happy to let us continue with our matches. Even offered us free whisky, which we politely declined. Yup, you gotta make your boss happy and, err, let him win sometimes ....... Next up was Jung Jae Yong/Chen Hung Chu vs Zhang Deng/Fu Haifriend. The match was pretty close with many diagonal shot placements. Quite evenly balanced, until Zhang Deng had a sudden drop in form midway through the game. Even with minimal deception, Jung Jae Yong was able to force return of serve (or rather, non-return of serve) errors from Zhang Deng. :crying: Thus, the Korean-Taipei combo took it home quite easily 21-15. Chen Hung Chu then switched partnership with his good friend Fu Haifriend, to play Cai Loh and Davey Padukone. Really, an "experienced player" like Cai Loh should have known better not to pair with a singles "specialist". Davey Padukone was doing practically all the running and wild whacking beyond the baseline, it was a walk in the park for Chen and Fu. The TPE-CHN combination won a lopsided victory 21-10. Pictures below: Trying to extend his winning streak, Chen Hung Chu then invited Zhang Deng to partner him and beat their respective old partners, Jung Jae Yong and Cai Loh. This was a very tight and bitter battle between old partners turned enemies, and knives (I mean racquets) were at the ready. No more than 3 points were the difference throughout. The telling difference was again, the flick serve and return of flick serve (more of a block, really) of Zhang Deng. As it got to 20-18 for the TPE-CHN combination, suddenly Zhang Deng's, err, impeccable service form dipped and he served to the net. 20-19!! Luckily a short rally ended with Chen Hung Chu's point blank attack on a hapless Cai Loh, and they won it 21-19. The final match was between Cai Loh and his regular pal Fu Haifriend, against Jung Jae Yong and Davey Padukone. Cai Loh was tested to the limit in this match, played at midnight. Jung Jae Yong took all the opportunities to bring his arch-nemesis down on the floor, and succeeded quite a number of times ....... But in the end, the might of the, ahem, "World Champions" is too much for Jung and Padukone, and they feel to a 15-21 defeat, despite the court being full of Cai Loh's sweat. Pics Here: Jung Jae Yong and Davey Padukone looking confident, having brought Cai Loh down to the floor Cai Loh in agony, trying to get up after a desperate dive ..... Cai Loh prepares to cover the backcourt ....... Only to go down yet again (TO BE CONTINUED)
(PART 9 : FINAL RESULTS AND GROUP PHOTOS) Here are the official results, as ratified by the tournament referee, Zhang Deng: Cai Loh/Zhang Deng beat Jung Jae Yong/Chen Hung Chu 21-17 Cai Loh/Fu Haifriend beat Jung Jae Yong/Chen Hung Chu 21-18 Jung Jae Yong/Chen Hung Chu beat Cai Loh/Master Michael 21-15 Master Michael beat Jung Jae Yong/Chen Hung Chu 21-12 (singles court rules) Chairman Michael beat Davey Padukone 21-3 Jung Jae Yong/Chen Hung Chu beat Fu Haifriend/Zhang Deng 21-15 Chen Hung Chu/Fu Haifriend beat Cai Loh/Davey Padukone 21-10 Zhang Deng/Chen Hung Chu beat Cai Loh/Jung Jae Yong 21-19 Cai Loh/Fu Haifriend beat Davey Padukone/Jung Jae Yong 21-15 We finished our campaign at 12:40 am Sunday morning. Here are our incomplete group photos, taken by our best performer, Fu Haifriend ...... Left to right: Jung Jae Yong, Zhang Deng (drenched in sweat), Davey Padukone, Chairman Michael, Coach Allan Teoh, Chen Hung Chu, Cai Loh. hcyong has a more complete one with Fu Haifriend in the picture, maybe he will post it up later. Many thanks to Michael Lee, Allan Teoh and Michael's Badminton Academy for their hospitality. (THE END)
