Chinese Badminton Gains More Confidence from Men's Doubles

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, August 02, 2003

Chinese Badminton Gains More Confidence from Men's Doubles

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China's efforts in revitalizing their beleaguered men's doubles are paying off as Sang Yang/Zheng Bo eliminated mistakes-prone Chang Chong Ming/ChewChoon Eng of Malaysia to reach the semifinals of the 13th world badminton championships here on Friday.

The Chinese pairing, which made debut at the world championships, staged an amazing comeback from 2-9 down in the deciding set to win 15-11.

They started on the wrong foot losing the first set 7-15 in a match against Chang/Chew, who finished third in the world championships in 1999.

But Sang/Zheng properly readjusted their tactics, getting more active on the net and reducing their opponents to a row of mistakes.

Later, another Chinese pair Cheng Rui/Wang Wei lost 3-15 and 3-15 to former world champions Sigit Budiarto/Candra Wijaya of Indonesia in another last-eight match.

The loss, however, didn't dilute any joy in the Chinese camp, which has not cherished any fantasy that Chen/Wang could stop Sigit/Candra, one of the top men's doubles pair in the world.

In the event's quarterfinals, China has a third pair in Cai Yun/Fu Haifeng, seeded seventh, who is favored to win the match against Shuichi Nakao/ Shuichi Sakamoto late in the day.

Cai/Fu, along with Sang/Zheng, has been regarded as the biggesthopefuls to break China's jinx in this event.

China used to be strong in this event when Li Yongbo/Tian Bingyi claimed the world titles twice in the 1980s. But the glory was gone with the retirement of the two legends.

The men's doubles has been the Achilles heel of Chinese badminton for the last decade, being always a major factor in China's continuous failure to re-claim the Thomas Cup title (worldmen's team championships) .

Their best record in the last 10 years came in the 1999 world championships when Zhang Jun/Zhang Wei made the semifinals.

"They performed better than I have expected, Now we are gettingmore confident in recapturing the Thomas Cup next year," Li Yongbo,former world doubles champion and now Chinese head coach, said after Sang/Zheng's victory.

"Their utilization of tactics remains to be improved, but they are still young. We have seen hopes from their performance.

As Sang/Zheng brought joy to Chinese map, Chinese players are stepping closer to the men's singles title of the world championships.

Bao Chunlai ended the winning run of Malaysian Muhammad Roslin Hashim by a 15-7 and 15-10 triumph to be the first to reach the semifinals.

He will meet either his compatriot fifth-seeded Xia Xuanze or 2nd-seeded Kenneth Jonassen of Denmark.

Later, Wong Choong Hann, seeded ninth here, went past Asian champion Sony Dwi Kuncoro, seeded sixth, 15-8 and 15-5, setting upa meeting with either top seed Chen Hong or 13th-seeded Shon Seung-Mo of South Korea.

In women's doubles, eighth-seed Seiko Yamada/Shizuka Yamamoto of Japan made the semifinals by beating fourth-seed Mia Audina/Lotte Jonathans 15-9 and 15-8.

In mixed doubles fourth-seeded Jonas Rasmussen /Rikke Olsen of Denmark eased to a 15-1 and 15-7 win over Anggun Nugroho/Eny Widiowati of Indonesia

Ninth-seed Kim Dong-Moon/Ra Kyung-Min of South Korea also stormed to a 15-8 and 15-1 comfortable win over tenth-seeded Lars Paaske /Pemille Harder of Denmark.

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