St. Jakobshalle, Basel txt: Dille Andersen photos: www.topbadminton.com They both came to the Main Draw from Qulifying! Wong Choong Hann, MAS and Simon Santoso, INA (pictured) It was an exciting clash between two players performing Singles badminton at its best. Maybe it was a matter of who had recovered best from playing the Qualification but it was Santoso who came out on top, winning in straight games 21-16, 21-12 in 34 minutes. The comet from England, Andrew Smith, made it a short entry for John Moody, AUS, by winning 21-14, 21-14 in a mere 23 minutes. The 5/8 seed from CHN, Bao Chunlai, beat Boonsak Ponsana, THA, having to fight really hard but 3 games and 65 minutes later he was through to the next round, beating the Thai 13-21,21-19,21-18. In the Women's Singles the 5/8 seed Yao Jie, NED, used 52 minutes to beat Yu Hirayama, JPN, in 3 games 21-18, 10-21,21-15. The other Netherlands/Japan clash, between Judith Meulendijks and Eriko Hirose wasn't as fortunate for the Dutch - she lost clearly in straight games, 10-21, 7-21 to the Japanese. Although not playing bad, Meulendijks simply couldn't match the speed of Hirose. Also 5/8 seed Lu Lan, CHN made it to the next round by beating Agnese Allegrini. ITA in straight games 21-16, 21-7. The clash between Susan Hughes, SCO, (pictured) and Anu Nieminen, FIN, ended with a two game win for the Scot, 21-18, 21-17. This interferred with the prediction of Anu Nieminen (pictured), as she before the match thought it would be a two game win - in her own favour! The greatest cheer of the afternoon happened during the Women's Doubles between homegirls Sabrina Jaquet/Corinne Joerg, SUI and Nicole Grether/Juliane Schenk, GER (pictured). It was a really close match and only a few faults from the Swiss girls tipped the match in favour of the strong German pairing, making it a straight game win of 22-20, 21-16. The Swiss had a very good support from the crowd (pictured)
Isn't John Moody from NZL? They both train with KLRC (at least in AE they had KLRC across their t-shirts)
Bad draw! Does anyone feel the men's single draw is a bit odd? Very poor draw!!! Two qualifiers playing against each other in the first round(Simon vs Wong)?? Shouldn't they be playing some seeded players? Two Danish players playing each other in the first round(Gade vs Kasper)?? Three malaysian players grouped in the 2nd and 3rd quarter, non in the 1st and 4th quarter? Gade and KJ to meet in quarter??? Lin Dan and Bao to meet in the quarter??? Seems some of the same country players will meet in the early rounds, how boring.
I dont think badminton can win. People complain when CHN V CHN or other sam country match ups in finals and later rounds, and others complain when they meet earlier. I think better they meet earlier, more to play for later on.
OMG, haven't we gone through this before??? What's the problem with players from the same country playing against each other? It's an OPEN tournament, isn't it?
I'm sure Lin Dan vs Bao (Walkover).....Lin Dan vs Chen Yu (Walkover)...Lin Dan vs Chen Jin (walkover)....Lin Dan (Winner), BWF will start doing something different. Lin Dan only needs to win first and second round and automatically win Firrst place. I'm sure LYB will not want to see his players injured playing against each other. LYB doesn't care who wins, China gets the prize money in the end. The big loser in the end is the audience/spectators, people who paid/bought tickets to watch the competition.
They already have, they have removed nationality splits from the draws so that same nations are NOT able to be separated until later rounds (they can meet each other at any point-the only separation is from seedings, which is why (IMO) CHN increased their 3rd and 4th players rankings to enable them to be seeded and thus keep their separation.) Anyone know the rules for scoring ranking points from walkovers? some competitions I know do not allow point to be won from walkovers without a poit being played.
As the saying goes - 'you can't please everybody'. When players from the same country meet in the early rounds - complain, when they meet in the finals - boring ... and it goes on. Obviously, the players & coaches don't have a say as the draws are made by the officials in BWF. I don't think they are any happier than the fans are when the draws are not favourable but would have to learn to adapt and make the best out of it i.e to win under all conditions. The format is almost the same with the tennis open tournaments. No matter how many Russian girls are swarming the tournament (tennis), the fittest survive.
