Taufik Hidayat ended his 13-month title drought in Lucknow, India, for the Yonex – Sunrise Syed Modi Memorial India Open Grand Prix Gold where he beat youngster Varma in the final of the event. In the women’s singles, Thailand pulled a “Chinese trick” on the spectators as the final was not played and Ratchanok Inthanon won her final against compatriot Porntip Buranaprasertsuk.
By Raphael Sachetat. Photo: Badmintonphoto (archives)
It was a good Christmas gift for Taufik. After his compatriot Simon Santoso pulled out of the tournament, he was the clear favourite to take the title. And he did. After a tough semi-final against Wong Ki Wing from Hong Kong, the Indonesian was opposed to a new face of the badminton world: India’s Sourabh Varma. This time, it took 2 games for Taufik to beat his opponent of the day, 21-18, 21-15.
Coach Gopichand was proud of his trainee. “Sourabh played superbly. He carried out the plan well, but he was up against the class of Taufik, who had planned the big points so well,” he told the Hindu.
In the women’s singles, Ratchanok Inthanon won the title without even playing her final against her compatriot Buranaprasertsuk as the latter withdrew before the match. The tops seeds in the men’s doubles and mixed also won on Sunday (Sato/Kawamae and Prapakamol/Thoungthungkam) but the favourites in the women’s doubles – Japan’s Maeda and Suetsuna – didn’t make it all the way. They were stopped by Singapore’s Yao Lei and Shinta Mulia Sari in straight games 17-21, 18-21.
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Congrats to Taufik for winning India GPG, but he need to pull the same feat in Super Series. As for the “Chinese trick” term used in this article, this is just going to make the already heated arguments in this site worse. Nonetheless, I would really love to know why Porntip gave a walkover to Inthanon.
Verma, the future Lee Chong Wei. As for the term used in the article, it clearly shows how biased this site is against the Chinese side. I smell jealousy perhaps…
I hope you’re not denying that they do it though… It’s their own fault that they’re known for it. Defending practice like that is almost as bad as doing it. I don’t know what your idea of professional writing is, but personally I feel that the site has more of a responsibility to the sport rather than glossing over one nation’s disgusting lack of sportsmanship. It needs to be out in the open if anything is actually going to be done about it. If everyone just ignores it or talks about it in a hushed voice, then there’s no pressure whatsoever on BWF to actually do anything.
Putting it down to jealousy just sounds like denial to me.
Just so it’s known, I have nothing against the Chinese players. Only the management.
Oh… haha… just saw the other article (which is brilliant). Also saw your comments Lamps! Just reading the first couple is enough to see how blindly loyal you are. There’s no cinvincing you otherwise. Oh well. Whatever makes you happy (even if it is in delusion).
I also wanted to say it’s obviously just as much BWF’s fault as China’s. Talk about incompetent.
The only thing i could say to you is live with it and enjoy every genuine game you can afford to see before the situation calls for the match fixing to take place. I don’t deny the fact that these walkovers are voluntary and selfless act out of patriotism by the players, but it’s the players who think similarly to LYB’s perception. As it stands, Chen Jin is slowly catching up on Gade in the top 4 and we’ll see more walkovers and match fixing next year 2012. Apart from that, in the women’s singles, there’s more to come as LYB will attempt to use some extra help from the non-Wang players to squeeze some players out of the top 16 to prevent them from entering the Olympics. Watch Ratchanok, Tai Tzu Ying and Hirose, you three are next!