AUSTRALIAN OPEN 2016 R16 – Young Koreans advance

Food for thought part 1: It doesn’t matter as much what pace you play at compared to whether you can impose your preferred rhythm on overall proceedings.  Two Korean men’s singles players rarely seen outside their borders capitalised on that today.

By Aaron Wong, Badzine Correspondent live in Sydney.  Photos: Badmintonphoto (live)

China’s Wang Zhengming, who admitted not feeling well in the mixed zone yesterday, retired due to injury at the third game interval but not before helping to create what for most in the crowd was their virgin experience of watching a game reach 30-29.  No doubt the experience would’ve benefitted his opponent Heo Kwang Hee (pictured right) too, even though the young Korean fluffed a smash to give that sudden death point away easily.

Their match was men’s singles of a classic style compared to the speedy early period Lin Dan-esque escapade between Anthony Ginting and Sameer Verma on the adjacent court.  Pre-injury, what’s interesting is that on the surface in the first game, Wang always looked to be the more experienced and winning but the trends in the score indicate there’s more to it.

Heo kept in the game because of a not immediately detectable 10% natural urgency in addressing the shuttle and movement.  He didn’t win the first game but he made his presence known to Wang but probably not to the crowd.

Heo’s more limited experience showed through in his not being very good at getting out of a knot with such scenarios ending quite quickly.  Like Anders Rasmussen, this Korean possesses a better-than-average, un-showy smash that’s retrievable but can only be returned safely.  These two areas are worth him developing so we can get to see more of the 2013 World Junior Champion in international competition.

Please run faster

Wide-eyed and taking in all the sights and sounds of his first trip to Australia, Heo’s teammate Jeon Hyeok Jin (pictured top) sent Vietnam’s Nguyen Tien Minh packing, 21-19, 21-14.

“My opponent plays at a similar speed to me and he has a running style so I upped the pace as much as I could bear and it yielded a good result.  I haven’t been playing overseas for a while and wanted to do well and well pleased I did,” said the easygoing Jeon.

Not quite right

In women’s doubles, both of the fresh Chinese pairings won through to the quarter-finals but the Bao Yixin / Chen Qingchen fitting perhaps need rethinking.  Not that these partners don’t visibly get along but Bao isn’t naturally involved enough especially compared alongside Tang Jinhua / Huang Yaqiong (pictured) who caused the upset of seeded Danes, Christinna Pedersen / Kamilla Rytter-Juhl, 21-12, 21-19.

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