Shuttlers' poor showings raise concerns

China's badminton team showed some signs of life at last week's BWF Super Series Swiss Open, just a week after a terrible showing at the All England Badminton Open.

Love birds and world No 1s Lin Dan and Xie Xingfang were crowned in the men's and women's singles, respectively, and China's women's doubles and mixed doubles pairs also tasted victory.

But wins in an Open tournament are not enough to make up for their losses in the more prestigious All England Open, nor are they enough to quell increasing doubts about the team's recent inability to perform well in the past year.

"Every player has ups and downs. The more important thing is how to tune them up to the best form during the Beijing Games," said head coach Li Yongbo. "But I hope people do not expect too much from the players and do not give them too much pressure."

China's disappointing showing at the All England highlighted the power shift in badminton and raised questions about China's ability to dominate at the Games.

China's shuttlers only managed to win two out of five titles at the All England - men's singles and mixed doubles - in the most important tournament before the Games. It was China's worst result in six years.

The most baffling development for coach Li is the unexpectedly sluggish performances of his women's players, who usually coast through major tournaments to win gold with ease.

This year, China's top two women - three-time defending champion Xie and Olympic champion Zhang Ning - were both eliminated in the first round.

Instead, it was Denmark's Tine Rasmussen who asserted her dominance. She knocked out No 4 seed Zhu Lin in the second round and went on to win the title by defeating China's only remaining woman, Lu Lan, in the final.

The tournament was even more frustrating for China in women's doubles. All three of China's pairs made it to the semifinals, only to see Korea's Lee Hyo-jung and Lee Kyung-won ultimately stand atop the podium.

Li said China still needs time to get used to the 21-point scoring system.

"The new scoring system will lead to more unexpected results," Li said. "Any mistake in the competition will cost you a point, and we have to take more time to learn from the system and gain more experiences.

"It also means the advantage of China's women's players is not as big as it used to be. We have to work harder in order to keep our edge in the sport."

Li believes China's women's shuttlers would get back on track before the Olympics.

"I still believe Xie is the best in the world and our women's doubles are the dominant force.

"Fortunately it's not the Olympics yet. We still have time to tune up their form."

In the men's competition, China's rising doubles pair Cai Yun/Fu Haifeng, who lost in the finals last year and were the top seeds this year, failed to live up to their ranking, suffering a shocking second-round loss, as China's other pair, Guo Zhendong/Xie Zhongbo, also lost in the first round.

The tournament wasn't all bad for China, as Zheng Bo/Gao Ling beat Indonesia's Nova Widianto/Lilyana Natsir in the mixed doubles. The men's singles was an all-Chinese final, with youngster Chen Jin upsetting world No 1 Lin.

"The men's singles performances gave us comfort. All of them did a very good job and I think we have a very good chance to win back the gold medal in the Beijing Games as long as we keep such good form," Li said.

Stuttering performances

Four years ago in Athens, Zhang was crowned the women's singles title while Lin lost to Indonesian archrival Hidayat Taufik in the final.

But over the past year, the inevitability of Chinese shutters has waned as they have suffered a series of setbacks at big tournaments

The Korea Open, in which China also won only two titles, was the second in a string of embarrassments for China's elite singles players after the Malaysia Open, where China also only managed to clinch two titles in women's doubles and mixed doubles.

An aging and injury-plagued Zhang has been slumping ever since. She has gone almost a year without a trophy and is in danger of being replaced by a younger shuttler right before the Games.

But Li insisted Zhang still has the chance to win an Olympic ticket as long as she gets back on track in the next qualifying competitions.

Though Zhang's early exit from the All England will not cost her second place on China's Olympic points table, it does put her at risk of losing out to young world champion Zhu Lin and Lu.

According to Olympic rules, every nation is only allowed a maximum of three players to compete in each event in Beijing.

But whoever is finally selected to China's team, there are increasing doubts that they will be able to beat Rasmussen or Wong Mew Choo from Malaysia if they meet in Beijing.

Head-to-head records suggest Rasmussen has become China's biggest current rival. She also beat Zhu and Lu on her way to January's Malaysia Open title.

At the Japan Open last September, Rasmussen also demonstrated Europe's growing competitiveness with wins over Chinese national champion Jiang Yanjiao, Zhang, Lu and then Xie in the final.

Wong upset Xie in the final of last November's China Open, where the host also settled for just two of the five titles, China's worst showing in 14 years at the tournament.

The team is now in Jinjiang, Fujian province on Saturday for a new training session, where, according to Li, they will approach more competitive training methods.

"All of our trainings in this session will be like competing in real Olympic Games. We will make more research on the 21-point system and have our players better known to the system."

(China Daily 03/25/2008 page23)