Story by Jan Lin/Red Sports. Photos by Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports.
Singapore Indoor Stadium, Tuesday, June 9, 2008 - Singapore had an army of 14 shuttlers playing on the qualifying day of the 2008 Singapore Badminton Open, but only 2 of them survived to qualify for the main draw of the US$200,000 event.
Singapore is playing host to the 5th leg of the prestigious Badminton World Federation (BWF) Super Series. The Super Series is the ‘grand slam' equivalent in badminton that sees top-notch shuttlers from all over the world travelling across 12 cities throughout the year to accumulate points for the Grand Finals in December 2008.
More than 200 international players from over 20 countries have made their way to Singapore for the 6-day long event held at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. The cast for the 2008 edition is not as stellar compared to previous years due to player injuries, unfeasible accommodation arrangement and other reasons.
Not to disappoint badminton fans in Singapore, the Republic fielded a full compliment of players for the event. However, only women singles’ players Gu Juan and Fu Mingtian kept the Republic's flag flying when they defeated their higher-ranked opponents to make it through the qualifiers. They join teammate and Olympic-bound world number 37 Xing Aiying in the main draw of the women's singles event.
2007 World Junior Championship semi-finalist Gu Juan defeated her junior circuit nemesis, Malaysia’s 19-year-old Lydia Cheah, in the first round with commendable straight sets scores of 21-13, 21-15, before clinching the ticket to the main draw when she defeated compatriot Chen Jiayuan 21-10, 21-5.
The other China-born junior player currently donning Singapore colours, Fu Mingtian, also did Singapore proud when she took out Taiwanese Chiang Pei Hsin 21-8, 22-20 in the first round and later, ousting 2nd seed Camilla Sorensen from Denmark in a 51-minute tiebreaker match with nail-biting scores of 16-21, 21-19, 21-16.
The Singaporean men's singles qualifiers, however, suffered an unusual whitewash at home with all but one player going down in straight sets to their opponents. Most of the local lads could not find their usual touch this morning, allowing their counterparts from across the causeway to snuff out any flickering flame of hope.
Huang Chao was the only local representative that took Malaysia's Allen Tai to a tiebreaker, but eventually succumbed 19-21, 21-7, 21-16. Singaporean youngsters, Ashton Chen and Derek Wong, who have tasted moments of international success before, couldn't relive those moments today.
With both boys currently serving their National Service, perhaps that could have affected their usual training regime. Ashton went down 18-21, 16-21 to Malaysia's number 1 junior 19-year-old Arif Latif, while Derek was gunned down 15-21, 12-15 by seasoned campaigner Kuan Beng Hong, also from Malaysia.
"I think he probably put some pressure on himself because he is playing at home. He could have played a lot better against his opponent, but the lack of training due to NS could also be a factor", revealed Derek's mother, Irene Wong, who is a former national champion in Singapore.
Red Sports had a chat with Malaysia's renowned men's singles coach, Misbun Sidek, for an analysis of the gap between the Malaysia and Singapore junior players playing at the international level.
The eldest of Malaysia’s legendary Sidek brothers revealed, "It goes down to the training. The training at the Malaysia's Sports School (BJSS) has been effective in filtering the best players through to the senior squad.
"The obvious gap between juniors and seniors playing on the international circuit lies in the fitness, so the junior players have to emphasise on training their fitness in catching up with the seniors playing on the international circuit.
"They (juniors) can play well for one game or two games, but what is the point if they can't go all the way to the final? They have to be able to sustain for the entire tournament and we emphasized on training for that.
They also can't be contented having the same amount of training [with the seniors] because they need to catch up, so they have to push themselves to train more than the senior players.
"For instance and put it simply, if your junior players want to catch up with Ronald Susilo, they will have to train at least twice as much as he does."
Olympic-bound world number 27 Ronald Susilo will be the lone flag bearer at the men's singles event, as his compatriot, 24-year-old Kendrick Lee, pulled out from the tournament yesterday citing injury as a reason.
For full results of the 2008 Singapore Badminton Open, see here.
More pictures in the gallery.
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