Chinese Players Head Hopefully to Birmingham

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, July 28, 2003

Chinese Players Head Hopefully to Birmingham

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Chinese badminton players are heading to the Birmingham World Championships hopeful that they can shake off the problems which have dogged them since the Busan Asian Games and lay solid foundations for next year's Athens Olympics.

The loss of the Sudirman Cup earlier this year, the impact of SARS including a two-month postponement of the tournament and Chinese players' alienation from international competitions before the epidemic was beaten, have all conspired to make this a bad year so far for badminton in China.

A gloomy mood has descended on the Chinese camp, for whom things had gone rather smoothly since the Sydney Olympics as they won a large share of major international titles.

And Birmingham is seen as the crossroads for the squad which has shown signs of decline since the 2002 Busan Asian Games where they garnered two golds out of a total of seven up for grabs.

Li Yongbo, the beleaguered team's head coach is asking his players to try as hard as they can and win no more than two golds from the five events so that he can put the squad back on track before the Athens Games.

"I want each of my players to make their best effort," he said before the team left for Birmingham last Thursday.

Even without participating in any international competitions since mid-April due to SARS, Chinese players still managed to occupy the world's top spots in three events - the men's singles, women's doubles and mixed doubles on which they are also rated as top seeds of the tournament.

But a controversial draw from the International Badminton Federation (IBF) may spoil the Chinese party.

The draw, saw most of Chinese title favourites being slotted into same half, caused a loud skepticism over its credibility from Li.

The IBF released the draw on July 20 but mysteriously changed the men's singles draw two hours later citing a software error.

In the men's singles, three Chinese top players Xia Xuanze, the Sydney Olympics bronze medallist and his two younger team-mates Lin Dan and Bao Chunlai are grouped in the same half and a similar draw is also seen on women's side with titleholder Gong Ruina, last-time beaten finalist Zhou Mi and Xie Xingfang standing together.

"We are involved in a big difficulty that we have not met before," said Li. "No one can rescue us from the plight except ourselves."

However, China's world No 1 and top seed Chen Hong, who was separated with his team-mates Xia, Lin and Bao by a light draw, will be hoping to go two steps further than his world championships bronze medal from Seville in 2001.

The 23-year-old has been the long-time favourite of Chinese camp with his stable form which helped to win the silver medal at the 2003 All-England championships in February this year.

After losing out to Muhd Hafiz Hashim in the All-England final, Chen, the reigning Singapore and Denmark Open champion is looking for better fortunes on English soil this time around.

Denmark's Peter Gade who came back with a wildcard and ninth seed Malaysian Wong Choong Hann will be Chen's biggest obstacle to his first championships final.

But it would be a tough run for other Chinese players to make it to the final because they have to play Denmark's Kenneth Jonassen, Anders Boesen, the second and fourth seeds and Asian stars, Chen's fellow 2001 bronze medallist Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia and South Korea's 2003 Sudirman Cup hero Lee Hyun-il.

Compared with the men's side, the title mission for the Chinese women is rather earlier although they encountered a same bad draw.

Their biggest title challenge will be rest on Camilla Martin, the Danish 1999 world champion and seventh seed.

Can Martin emulate her 1999 championships performance as she beat four Chinese en route to gold will largely decide China's fortune in what looks to be her final world championships before retiring after the Athens Olympics next year. Veteran Zhang Ning, the second seed, will try to stop Martin running into the final as another title match place looks certain to be decided between Gong and Zhou.

China's other gold will very likely comes from the women's doubles on which Wei Yili and Zhao Tingting and the reigning champions Gao Ling and Huang Sui are the top two seeds.

The only threat will be Ra Kyung-min and Lee Kyung-won who upset all Chinese top pairs to win gold at Busan Asiad.

The reigning champions and top seeds Zhang Jun and Gao Ling will do utmost to defend their title on mix doubles. But they had to settle a long-time duel with South Koreans Kim Dong-moon and Ra Kyung-min, the 1999 champions who were beaten by them in 2001. Kim and Ra have a stunning 44-game winning streak since June 2001 before they fell to Zhang and Gao at Japan Open this April.

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