LI-NING CHINA OPEN 2009 - Another World No 1 crashes out

Some players spend hours working on tactics before a match. Watching hours of videos to prepare the best way and know exactly what to expect from which shot from their future opponents. And that’s what Wong Mew Choo probably did.

But not this time. She and her coach had agreed that it was all about being relaxed and enjoying the game. And it is exactly what she did against top seed Wang Yihan of China, supported by a small group of fans who had come for the first match of Thursday’s session in the beautiful Yuanshen Pudong stadium.

“I had never played against her and to tell you the truth, I didn’t prepare at all for this match. I just went out there to see what I could do. I had seen her play before but I didn’t watch videos or anything, and I certainly didn’t expect to beat her.” said a delighted Mew Choo.

The Malaysian certainly did what was the best to do against Wang Yihan, in her current state of form – after having struggled the following round against a much lower ranked player and having played all week in Hong Kong – Mew Choo just tried to kept the shuttles back in the court, avoiding to make mistakes.

It was to be enough against the tall Shanghai girl, who pushed her luck on attacks and started committing mistakes one after the other. After leading most of the first game, Wang felt a bit tired and wasn’t moving as smoothly on court while her opponent was on every shuttle.

At 12/14, Wong Mew Choo scored five points in a row to take a lead she was to keep until the end of the game that she won 21/18.

The second game was similar, with Wang on top of the first half but Mew Choo’s constant drives at the rear of the court and accelerations though out the rallies proved lethal – she was soon in the lead after scoring 6 points in a row, for a final 21/17 second game and ticket for the quarter finals.

“I was getting a bit tired entering the court, after playing in 3 tournaments back to back and I could feel it in my legs. I wasn’t fast enough when she sped up – I could feel she was experienced in the way she played the game. I’m disappointed, of course, but in a way, last year, I had lost here in my home town in the first round. This year, it’s the second round… I hope to fare better and to live to my status as world number one, hopefully to clinch many titles next year. I will use the winter break to train hard in order to be ready for next year,” said Wang.

If Eriko Hirose didn’t win her match against youngster Shi Xiaoqian, she certainly deserves the award of fair play spirit for not complaining at an unbelievable call. Trailing 17/19 in the decider, with a clear landing at least 20 centimeters inside the court, but the shuttle was called out.

Instead of 18/19, it was then 20/17 for Shi Xiaoqian who couldn’t ask for more and scored on the next point. Despite the contentious call, Shi deserved to win as she had played beautifully all throughout the match and did deserve – just like her opponent – to go to the quarter-final where she’ll join no less than six of her team mates. But she’ll have to face Wong Mew Choo in the quarter final first.

In another women’s singles match, Wang Xin stunned Tine Rasmussen in three tight games. The Chinese, who had spent few months in the National team more than four years ago when she had entered the elite team together with Jiang Yanjiao, had since been sent back to her team in the Army because of a back injury.

But thanks to an impressive performance in several physical tests lately, she was able to go back directly to the National team - a first in China – without going first through the B Team and will hope to emulate the success of former player-turned-coach Zhang Ning, who incidentally comes from the same province as her.

Posted by Lucas Liau on 10:00 AM. Filed under News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0