Commonwealth Games badminton:
Two medals and muddle for Singapore
Singapore picked up two Commonwealth Games badminton bronze medals on
Wednesday, but there was controversy before Chetan Triyachart and Yao
Lei snatched their triumph.
The Singaporean mixed doubles pair had reached 13-6 in the final game
against Malaysian rivals Chan Peng Soon and Liu Ying Goh when a dispute
broke out, eventually involving two officials.
Goh argued that Chan had raised his hand signalling he was not quite
ready to receive serve, a commonplace action, but that Tryichart
delivered the shuttle anyway, causing the Malaysians to lose the point.
She claimed that it should be replayed but when the umpire refused to
allow this, Goh requested to talk to the competitions director.
There followed several minutes debate, but the score stood. On
restarting however Triyachart delivered a fault with his next serve,
though whether deliberately or not was unclear.
A spirited Malaysian revival followed, perhaps fuelled by a sense of
injustice, and a seven-point deficit was reduced to three at one stage
before Yao finished off the match with a quick, neat kill at the net.
The score was 21-14, 17-21, 21-17.
The closeness of the scoreline was all the more creditable because of
Chan's condition.
"He is not well," Goh claimed. "He was not in condition to play, but
he gave of his best."
Later Triyachart was not far from picking up a second medal, for he
and Wong Zi Liang had a narrow lead during phases of the first game
before they were beaten 23-21, 21-12 in the men's doubles by compatriots
Hendri Saputra and Hendra Wijaya.
At one point in the second game Wijaya produced an amazing
behind-the-back shot as the shuttle hurtled to and fro at great speed in
the flat mid-court rallies.
The women's doubles brought a surprise as the unseeded Australian
pair of He Tian Tang and Kate Wilson-Smith picked up the bronze medal.
They followed their defeat of the fourth-seeded New Zealanders
Danielle Barry and Donna Halliday with a 21-13, 12-21, 21-11 win over
the third-seeded English pair of Jenny Wallwork and Gabby White.
It was 14 years ago that He Tian Tang won her previous bronze medal -
for China at the Olympic Games in Atlanta.
It was four years ago that Liz Cann, the former Jersey player, lost
the women's singles bronze medal play-off to Scotland's Susan Hughes at
the Melbourne Games.
Now as an England player she reversed that result against the now
married Susan Egelstaff, coming back from 6-13 down in the first game
and from 10-12 in the second to win 21-18, 21-16.
"I think I was more relaxed than four years ago," Cann said.
Later India's star Kashyap Parupalli, who had done much to get his
country into the team final for the first time, won the men's singles
bronze when he overcame his higher-seeded compatriot Chetan Buradagunta
21-15, 21-18.
But he seemed only marginally satisfied.
"I trained myself to win gold," Parupalli said. "Somewhere in my mind
I had it that the Commonwealth Games can give me the platform to win,
but I got too disappointed in the semi-finals. Now I will have to wait
another four years." NEW DELHI, Oct 13, 2010 (AFP) |