AVIVA SINGAPORE OPEN – Chong Wei and Peter sent packing

What a day ! After the greatest upset of the day when Nguyen Tien Minh had beaten Lee Chong Wei, another one was coming – Peter Gade, in great form before the tournament, was ousted by giant killer Anup Sridhar.

Had Nguyen Tien Minh been an actor, he would have definitely gotten the Palm for the most fighting spirit at the Cannes Festival. Today, on court and against both the odds and the crowd - who clearly supported Lee Chong Wei - the 26 year old Vietnamese showed an incredible spirit, never giving up even if two match points lost in the second games could have destabilized him. But no…. he was to come back and win unexpectedly in the third game.

The Vietnam shuttler had taken a bit of time to get his game going in the first game, but slowly, he started pushing his shuttles at the world number one and attacking more and more. On the other side of the net, Lee Chong Wei seemed to be struggling for points, even if his smashes right onto Nguyen’s body were often lethal. Hand in hand, the two shuttlers never let go with the first game until they reached 18/18. Nguyen then scored twice to book himself 2 game points, but failed to convert.

A few minutes later, he saved one game point to finally get it right 24/22. The second game was just as amazing, with the Vietnam player gearing up and looking extraordinarily fit, while Chong Wei, in spite of some great shots, was obviously missing the right tactic. Once again strolling through the second game with never more than 2 points difference, it was once again Nguyen who took the first step towards the goal. Leading 20/18, with two match points, he once again was unable to close it up, while the public on the verge of their seats were shouting the usual “Malaysia Boleh’s” when Chong Wei recovered and took the second game scoring 4 straight points to win 22/20.

Odds to make it back after missing such a huge opportunity to beat the world number one are very small. Usually, it takes some time to get over the wasted match points. Never the less, the Vietnamese kept fighting with all his heart. It was Chong Wei, however, after changing from a yellow jersey to a black one, who took the lead 16/12. At that stage, Nguyen was not so optimistic anymore :

“I was thinking, oh, I will lose this match. And I won’t be able to sleep after missing two match points. But I kept fighting and , all of a sudden, he started attacking and made all the mistakes. It was unbelievable – I was just trying to put back the shuttles in play, and I got lucky” he said afterwards.

Crawling back with an incredible stamina, Nguyen was then back at 18/18, and, for the third time in the match, opening up to two game points at 20/18. He missed one, but certainly wouldn’t let go once again with this amazing chance to win his best match ever and eventually clinched the final game for an overall 24/22 – 20/22 – 21/19 success in one hour and one minute of incredible suspense.

“This is just incredible. I like this tournament, this is were I had done so well last year, beating Jan Jorgensen and Chen Yu before losing to Peter Gade in the rubber game. But this is even better. Beating the world number one and reaching the quarter final stage ! I had hoped to keep my ranking and maybe enter the top 10, so, this will allow me to keep my points from last year” said the 26 year old, who came to train few times in Singapore through out the past few months. “I like to come to Singapore to train under coach Asep Suharno, who is in charge of the men’s single in Singapore.

The conditions to train are great here, but now, it has become good at home too, with support from my association and a new sponsor” said the smiling shuttler.

“I feel like I’m not tired at all. So happy” he added. He will now take on Bao Chunlai. “I have nothing to lose; It will be very difficult, but I’ll try my very best, believe me” he laughed.

Reporters, who had already started their story of the day, had to come back on court a few minutes later to get the quotes from another upset top seeded player : Peter Gade had been ousted by India’s Anup Sridhar. The tall Indian once again played above par to reach another career high – he had been the one beating Taufik Hidayat in the 2007 world championships. This time, he played some of his best badminton to stun the world number 2 from Denmark, 21/19 – 16/21 – 21/13, with an inspired ending of match, where the Dane got stuck at 13/13.

“Everything went his way today. No matter what he tried, he succeeded. There are days like this. Sometime, it goes my way and I usually like to play in this hall with these conditions, but today, I didn’t feel at home. I have to accept that. I was in great form this is why I am very disappointed, of course, and maybe I had trained a bit too much for this tournament, but that’s the way it goes sometimes” said Gade.

Sridhar was playing his 4^th match as he had qualified on Tuesday. He will take on Boonsak Ponsana, another former winner here in Singapore. The Thai beat Simon Santoso quite easily. The other shuttlers to qualify are Chen Jin who will take on the last European Jan Jorgensen, and Park Sung Hwan who will play Sony Dwi Kuncoro for some mouth watering quarter finals

More upsets in doubles

The upsets were not over for the day, as some of the most highly ranked in the tournament got beaten in doubles events. Malaysia’s Koo and Tan, well supported by the local crowd and in fire in the first round were finally beaten by Clark and Robertson. Only Ong and Tan will represent Malaysia as the other pair of Chan and Chew were beaten by local pair Wijaya and Saputra – the Singaporeans will be the only ones from home soil to play on Friday.

Paaske and Ramsussen had a thrill when they barely survived their encounter against Indonesia’s Sukmawan/Dasuki and will keep the Danish flag flying together with Boe and Mogensen, easy winners of their second rounds.

Earlier in the day, Korea’s mighty Lee and Lee – the ladies – were edged out by Pan and Tian of China. And Koo’s bad day had started early with a loss in the mixed to Poland’s Mateusiak and Kostiuczyk. The Poles will be the only non seeded players in the quarters as all other favorites fared well.

Clark and Kellogg weren’t able to turn the odds around when they were beaten by world’s number one Widianto and Natsir, who are two steps away from an awaited Olympic rematch against Lee and Lee of Korea.

Xie Xingfang : « I want to win titles again »

Xie Xinfang scooped her quarter final ticket on Thursday and vows to end her title drought in Singapore. She leads a 4 strong Chinese squad in the women’s single.

“It is now time for me to start winning again. I want to win in all the Super Series I enter now”. Things couldn’t be more explicit from Xie Xingfang who was still sweating off after her 21/19 – 21/14 success over Ai Goto of Japan. The difference in style and height was striking but the Japanese made up it by fighting like tigers. On many occasions, the tall Chinese thought she had won the point, but Goto was always there to bring it back to life. It was so unexpected sometimes that the Chinese, missing easy shots to kill the shuttle, was laughing on her own, while the crowd was stunned by such fighting spirit.

Kanako Yonekura a former Japanese player was on the bench, encouraging her shuttler, but it was finally Xie who got the final touch in the first game 21/19. The second game was more one sided and the former world number one went on for an easier 21/14 success.

“With these windy conditions, the gap between the best and the others is narrowing down. We know that we just make many mistakes because we can’t control the shuttles here, so it is more difficult to beat players. We have to be extra careful, especially of the new young players who are very good, from China but also from other countries” said Xie. “But now, I want to focus on all the Super Series I have been doing poorly in tournaments ever since the Olympics. I want to put that behind me” she said.

Posted by Lucas Liau on 11:30 AM. Filed under News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0