Turkish Press.com 06-11-2007, 18h25 GLASGOW (AFP) Singapore caused the first upset at the Sudirman Cup World Team Championships with a 5-0 whitewash victory over Sweden in Division 2 Group in Glasgow on Monday. The Swedes, relegated from Group 1 in Beijing two years ago, were seeded No.8, but lost the first three matches to the eleventh seeded Singapore, with the 2002 Commonwealth Games champion Li Li clinching victory with a battling 21-17, 14-21, 21-17 win over Sara Persson in the women's singles. Hendri Kurniawan Saputra and Li Yujia claimed the first point with a 21-14, 21-16 victory over Henri Hurskainen and Elin Bergblom in the mixed doubles and Kendrick Lee made it 2-0 with a 23-21, 21-14 win over Magnus Sahlberg in the men's singles. Hendra Wijaya and Ronald Susilo then added the men's doubles and Jiang Yanmei and Li Yujia completed the clean sweep in the women's doubles. Chinese Taipeh defeated Germany In the other tie in Division 2 Group A, Chinese Taipei also beat a higher seeded team with a 4-1 win over Germany. Germany, seeded 13, claimed the first point with Huaiwen Xu defeating Shao Chieh Cheng in the women's singles, but Chinese Taipei's Chung Syan Hu and Chia Hsin Tsai won the men's doubles and Yu Shsing Hsieh beat Roman Spitko in a tight men's singles. In one of the tighest matches of the first session, Hsieh pulled off a 12-21, 25-23, 17-21 triumph and then Wen Hsing Cheng and Yu Chin Chien put the result beyond doubt for the No. 14 seeds with a comfortable 21-12, 21-11 win over Juliane Schenk and Nicole Grether in the women's doubles. Japan beat The Netherlands Japan began the round-robin campaign in Division 2 Group B with a win over the Netherlands. Eric Pang beat Shoji Sato take the opening men's singles for the Dutch side, but Japan responded with three victories in the men's doubles (Shintaro Ikeda and Shuichi Sakamoto), women's singles (Eriko Hirose) and women's doubles (Kumiko Ogura and Reiko Shiota) to clinch the victory. In the other match in Division 2 Group B, Poland beat Russia 4-1. AFP
Was it really a shock ? I haven't been following Sudirman cup in the past, so i'm curious what propelled SWE to League 1 in the first place ?
The detailed results of the Singapore versus Sweden match: Singapore[SIN] - [SWE] Sweden: 5-0 Draw: Sudirman Cup Div 2 - Group A Time: Mon 6/11/2007 9:30 AM Match overview Singapore - Sweden 1. XD Hendri Kurniawan Saputra/ Yujia Li d Henri Hurskainen and Elin Bergblom 21-14 21-16 2. MS Kendrick Lee d Magnus Sahlberg 23-21 21-14 3. WS Li Li d Sara Persson 21-17 14-21 21-17 4. MD Hendra Wijaya and Ronald Susilo d Mathias Wigardh and Gabriel Ulldahl 21-19 21-12 5. WD Yanmei Jiang and Yujia Li d Emelie Lennartsson and Elin Bergblom 21-13 21-11
It didn't came as a shock to me And I was also curious about it 2 years back when Sweden was playing in League 1. And also, why is it that Sweden is seeded 8th and S'pore is seeded 11th? Isn't S'pore the 1st seed in League 2?
Singapore is relatively new to the Sudirman Cup (and the Uber Cup) as it could not make up a creditable team in the past because of its weakness in the women's and men's doubles departments. With the import of foreign players, Singapore took some time to build up the present team to participate in the various world team events like this SC. Therefore its ranking has also to be built up in the process. On the other hand, Sweden has quite a balanced team and even managed to be promoted to Div 1 until its relegation two years ago to Div 2. So its ranking continues to be high at #8 versus Singapore's #11. But Singapore has managed to close the gap in this series but Chinese Taipeh in this same Group A will be Singapore's strongest rival I think, followed by Germany.
Hehe.. Then You're not die hard heck I even know some US single players .. But yeah, I agree Sweden is not good (there is a logic reason why they/we are racnked bottom at group B :-( ) /Twobeer
Definitely not a shock. I predicted a 5-0 drubbing. Only Swede that could cause a problem was Sara Persson. Elin Bergblom is the only other name I can recognise from the Swedish team.
You are better than me. Sweden doesn't seem to send their players to major tournaments, esp to Asia. That's why most of us don't know their names and can't identify with them, unlike players from Denmark or England.
The problem really is that the Swedish top-player standard is to low these days.. There is a generation gap where the retired oldboys still beat the current generation players.. So Sweden tries to focus on the younger players (Like Gabriel Ulldahl, who finished second in European junior championship etc.).. But the sad facts is that the Swedes aren't up to the top-level standard, and on national tournaments the international players frequently gets beaten by older swedes who retired and only play the national series now and then :-( The surdiman team is definitvely not the best Sweden could produce, but I guess they want to pitch the younger players to hopefully develop them and gain experience.. Cheers, Twobeer
Indeed, as Twobeer says this is a team for the future. But honestly only one of the men now participating would actually qualify in the troop if "the old boys" were to be selected. Probably as 3-4 HS player. And in the WD and XD the swedish team is severly hampered since the best player is sick (Johanna Persson), thus they were fielding scratch teams in both matches. Actually there is only one regular pair for the doubles, Elin & Johanna in WD, which have a good chance against any other in group 2. In MD it is all scratch pair and the regular XD team is too weak. Bad thing is that this "future prospects" doesn't seem to be able to bring Sweden back to top 3 in Europe as we by tradition has been. Sara, Elin&Johanna are the only able to compete with the top in Europe and hopefully be among the 16 best in the world. And they are getting "old".
but i kind of had a laugh and i was reading this article.Because before the match started our local newpaper was reporting that singapore should defeat sweden comfortably and when the result came out it was like just a tiny article saying singapore defeated sweden like as expected.However reporters in glasgow is like making a big hoorah that singapore upset sweden.
it should be interesting, and perhaps a little more humbling if singapore get promoted and have to play with the big boys for a change!
Yes, no doubt that playing with better players improved the playing standard. Even though there are negaitve views of 'foreign talents' replacing the local, it forced the locals to seek improvement. This is 1 up for 'importing'. Hope SIN get promoted to Div 1. Japan is not easy opponent.
I think one should not underestimate a team which was in Div 1 the last time and now playing in Div 2. Sweden must be good to be playing in the top division although it would appear that the other European countries especially must have caught up and Sweden probably will have to do something about it to regain its former position. Singapore was nowhere in the recent past as far as world team championships are concerned. It took us quite some time to build up a creditable team and our 'foreign imports' are no great names either when they play for Singapore and I believe none of them were even in their respective countries' national team. Our best known name, Ronald Susilo, came as a teenager and we have to nurture and develop him into what he is today. Our second team is still not up to par with the best in the world but the painfully slow process of developing them, together with our own local talents, is bearing some fruit of late. But it will be a good reward to all our SBA officials and administrators if Singapore can be promoted to Div 1 after this series.
Still does not make it a surprise. But keep fingers crossed for you that Singapore goes up to Div. 1.
Loh, I think after the relegation in 2005, badminton in Sweden did not flourish (in fact, Sweden hasn't produced world class players since mid-80s). The seeding here is flawed, I think much was put into previous records. Hope we can see Singapore in Div 1, but need to get past JPN and their cute girls first ....
Of course, after Sweden's display here in Div 2, it has revealed that Sweden is not as strong as before when it was in Div 1 and doesn't deserve the high ranking. Hitherto Sweden was a rather unknown quantity to many of us here as their players are almost unheard of in our tournaments. Sad thatTwobeer and Wirre have both confirmed about Sweden's decline. Japan's cute girls are my main worry, although as hcyong has also pointed out, it's MD has a 50/50 chance against Singapore. So Singapore has to be at its best to surpass Japan and not take things lightly!