Singapore Badminton Open – Memories of the finals

Badminton powerhouse China dominated the final day of the 2009 Singapore Badminton Open. Leading the way was their 5th seeded women’s doubles pair of Zhao Tingting and Zhang Yawen, who beat Indonesia’s Nitya Krishinda Maheswari and Greysia Polii in straight sets scores of 21-14, 21-13. (Photo 1 © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports)

Zhang Yawen (left) claimed after the match that Singapore is her ‘fortune ground’ after bagging her third Singapore Open women’s doubles title in five years, each won with a different partner. (Photo 3 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)

The women’s singles final was next to take centre stage and bag the title after three gruelling games (21-19, 18-21, 21-10). Hong Kong’s top seed, Zhou Mi, became the first player to have won the title twice under two different nationalities. The 30-year-old from Nanning, who migrated to Hong Kong in 2007, won her first Singapore Badminton Open title in 2002 under China’s flag. (Photo 4 © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports)

Facing the top seed in the final was China’s Olympic silver medallist Xie Xingfang. The 27-year-old Chinese has lain low for several months since the Olympic Games as she pondered whether to hang up the racket. In Singapore, she made known her intentions of making a come back by winning titles again. (Photo 5 © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports)

The unseeded veteran English pair also defeated Malaysia’s hot shots, Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong, seeded 3rd in the tournament en-route to their first Super Series final. (Photo 7 © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports)

32-year-old Nathan Robertson has been a highly successful mixed doubles player, winning the silver medal at the 2004 Olympic Games with his former parter Gail Emms. Since Gail announced her retirement in 2008, Nathan has rekindled his game in the men’s doubles event while still playing the mixed doubles with his junior partner, Jenny Wallwork. (Photo 8 © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports)

The all-Chinese mixed doubles final was a testament of China’s domination in Singapore with the new senior-junior partnership of Zheng Bo and Ma Jin (above) edging out compatriots Xie Zhongbo and Zhang Yawen in 3 games – 19-21, 21-19, 21-11. (Photo 9 © Jan Lin/Red Sports)

Zhang Yawen (right), who had bagged the women’s crown earlier, failed to make it 2 out of 2 as lethargy clearly hampered her movement during the tiebreaker. (Photo 10 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)

It was still a happy ending for the Chinese, who finally managed to break the Indonesians’ dominion in the mixed doubles in Singapore. 2005 was the last time China won the mixed doubles title in Singapore through their 2-time Olympic champions Zhang Jun and Gao Ling. (Photo 11 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)

Concluding the day was the hotly anticipated men’s singles final. The match lived up to its billing as China’s Bao Chunlai had to dig deep before disposing of Thailand’s “superman”, Boonsak Ponsana, in a 64-minute tiebreaker affair that ended in scores of 21-19, 16-21, 21-15. (Photo 12 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)

The 2007 Singapore Badminton Open champion, who had played a tiring 67-minute semi-final’s match against Korea’s Park Sung Hwan the day before, was beaten by lethargy in the third game against Bao. (Photo 13 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)

The men’s singles event had registered the greatest number of upsets throughout the week, and was the only final that was represented by two unseeded but outstanding men’s singles players. (Photo 15 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)

As the Chinese players dominated the finals’ line-up, it is unsurprising that the Chinese fans were also peppered all over the spectator stands on the final day. (Photo 16 © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports)

Indonesia relied on this faithful cheerleader, who made his presence known right from the start of the tournament. (Photo 17 © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports)