YONEX-SUNRISE BWF World Championships '09 - Palyama shows Bao the door
News 8:51 AM
Dicky Palyama was the hero of the Day in the opening day of the YONEX-SUNRISE BWF World Championships in Hyderabad when he stunned Bao Chunlai of China to forbid an all-China where the latter was expected to take on teammate Lin Dan.
Opening days of World Championships are always hectic with their share of missing wires or badges, on top of the withdrawal of the English team which was the centre of all conversation amongst players.
But for Dicky Palyama, this day was a special one as the Dutch provided the spectators with the only major upset of the day, by beating Bao Chunlai of China.
While there were some doubts over Bao’s fitness , due credit must given to Palyama who played a calculated game to show Bao the exit.
“The Chinese youngsters had told me that he was still not fully recovered, but I went out there to play my best. I had beaten him before in Korea, a long time ago, and I was hoping that I could do it again, even if we had played since then and he had beaten me big time,” said Palyama.
And the soft spoken shuttler took his chances clearly, distributing the game, paying attention not to lift the shuttle, playing the four corners, and mostly, not losing focus. “My coach Kim Young Man told me that, no matter what, I should not get angry for mistakes. If I make an error, so what ? Just keep calm. It’s exactly what I did.”
Net rallies often went to the Dutch – who scored three points when both shuttlers were only inches away from each other at the net. The first game went his way 21/18 and the second was to go even faster, 21/14 for an overall success in 35 minutes all together. “It feels good to win as he’s one of the top shuttlers” said Palyama. “I wasn’t even looking beyond that first round, but now, I hope that I will get to play Lin Dan in the third round,” he said.
Lin Dan didn’t spend much time for his start as he was facing a much weaker opponent – Israel’s Micha Zilberman. The Olympic Champion beat his opponent 21/9 – 21/11 to secure his spot in the second round where he is to face Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk of Thailand, who stunned Lee Tsuen Seng of Malaysia in quite an easy way.
Peter Gade also had a smooth start, with a 21/11 – 21/16 victory over Valeriy Atrashchenkov of Ukraine – a player he’s not used to playing against. Gade will play Sho Sasaki from Japan next who won his ticket without playing as Canada’s Stephan Wojcikiewicz withdrew due to injury.
Lee Chong Wei, also, had a rather smooth run (21/11 – 21/14) and will play a player he’s never met before in the second round : Nigeria’s Ola Fagbemi, who benefited from Rajiv Ouseph’s walkover.
If the spectators were rather quiet all day, the evening session saw some noise when Chetan Anand came on court against Korea’s young gun Hong Ji Hoon but the former, seeded 15th, worked his way around this tricky first round without shaking, taking it home 21/8 – 21/16.
It was also a day for smaller countries like Egypt or Iran to get a shot at playing the top stars. Kaveh Mehrabi, Iran born but training in Denmark was far from ridiculous against Hong Kong’s Chan Yan Kit, world’s 10th best player. The Iranian, who was the first ever shuttler from his country to qualify for the Olympics, went down 21/15 – 21/11. “I had my moments and I think that it was a good game for some parts. But of course, one can not just give away 5 points on mistakes against such players as they’d never give it back” said the ever smiling Mehrabi.
If it wasn’t for Chetan Anand, local players would have all gone in the first round – apart from Arvind Bhat, P. Kahsyap and Saina Nehwal, who are to play on Tuesday. The biggest blow came with the defeat of Rupesh Kumar and Thomas Sanave, who had just clinched the New Zealand Open.
But the duo missed their chance in the second game against Kenichi Hayakawa and Kenta Kazuno, seeded 14th. Leading 20/16, the Indians were too eager at the net and paid a heavy price.
In another India vs Japan tie between Noriyasu Hirata /Shizuoka Matsuo and wild card guests Arun Vishnu/Aparna Balan went the same way as the Japanese mixed beat their opponents in straight games. Later, Aditi Mutatkar went down quite easily to Germany’s Juliane Schenk 8/21 – 12/21.
Valery Atrashchenkov from Ukraine played no less than three matches on day one, and won 2 after his defeat to Gade in singles. The Ukrainian then beat Woon Khe Wei and Abdul Latif from Malaysia in three games together with Elena Prus and doubled it with his partner Natarov in the former USSR Derby against Russia’s Ivanov/Sozonov 21/19 in the decider.
Tuesday will see the shuttlers from the lower part of the draw in the men’s single competition – amongst which Taufik Hidayat, who celebrated his birthday on Monday. It will be also the first day for all top women’s single shuttlers.
Posted by Lucas Liau
on 8:51 AM.
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