Badminton duo wow England and Denmark fought out a pulsating badminton contest at the Carlton International staged at a packed Preston Guild Hall last night. It all went down to the final event before England snatched a 3-2 win, and it couldn't have been scripted better as the match hinged on the final mixed doubles between Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms and Thomas Laybourn and Kamilla Juhl who they beat in the 2005 All England final. The matches were played under a new scoring system – the new 3 x 21 rally point method – for the first time in this country. The victory was the perfect send-off for the England team ahead of the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne later this month – they jet off from Heathrow tonight. All the action can be seen again when it is screened on BBC1 tomorrow (1.10pm-2.10pm) and continued on Sunday Grandstand on BBC2 (2.45pm-4.15pm). Scores – England names first Women's doubles: Gail Emms (Herts) & Donna Kellogg (Derbyshire) bt Lene Frier Kristiansen & Kamilla Juhl 21-18 14-21 21-14 (48 mins) Men's doubles: Robert Blair (Leics) & Anthony Clark (Notts) lost to Jens Eriksen & Martin Lundgaard Hansen 21-13 14-21 21-17 (49 mins) Women's singles: Tracey Hallam (Staffs) bt Tine Hoy 21-19 21-12 (29 mins) Men's singles: Aamir Ghaffar (Middx) lost to Niels Christian Kaldau 21-18 21-12 (32mins) Mixed doubles: Nathan Robertson (Notts) & Gail Emms (Herts) bt Thomas Laybourn & Kamilla Juhl 21-11 21-16 (37mins). 03 March 2006
just great isn't it - the night all the best players in europe are on my doorstep - i have a match at least it's supposed to be on grandstand... and at least we won - should make for good telly tomorrow.. Coops
i went to that. it was a great match! donna kellog's cross court drop in the womens doubles was the shot of the whole thing!!!
I too went aswell along with 888phoenix888, i have a few pics not to say clips aswell, this event was interesting as they even had something called the 'speed challenge' which was an attempt to break the world record smash, i will have the clips soon,their team member would feed them and they would smash it as fast as they can at the camera. i don't think it was accurate though as martin lundgaard got the fastest at 107 mph and a little volunteer girl got over 80. Jens Eriksen got the slowest of 68 i think. all others including volunteers got over that. Also the point system was not favoured by fans , not to say the umpires as they even made mistakes. Me and 888Phoenix888 and another few friends had best seats in the venue IMO (front row on an angle to see the speed of the game); i was quite happy to have seen me and my friends on tv for the first time ,i also have took pics which il be glad to show, including the whole video of the speed challenge if i can get it off my friend, indeed a good lineup at this event. Kellog's Backhand drop indeed was good but i don't think it can match Laybourns dives in the mixed Probably a next year aswell as it's been consecutively done twice and shown on bbc. The only badmin footage on bbc besides olympics. Good exhibition
i agree that from a spectators point of view the new scoring system is not good. Afterwards they asked Gail Emms on her opinions and she said that it was not good as once you go 11-3 down it's nearly impossible to recover, so the game becomes predictable and boring. Its also quite confusing for people to follow
yep, even simon archer said that altho originally he'd thought it was going to be good for the sport has changed his mind because if you get more than 5 / 6 points ahead you've pretty much won the game because it's almost impossible to cut out the mistakes
Hi all, I too watched the footage on Grandstand. Watching the Men+Womans (singles and doubles), it seemed the new scoring system wasn't much good. It did make for interesting viewing for the mixed. I don't think, overall, that the new scoring system will really work - but it'll be interesting. Does anybody think that the new system will push the players to a new level of athletisim/endurance, forcing better rallies, or will the attitude change to a more aggressive attack every point due to losing the second serve advantage? ~
well, players will have to play extremely well, they cant afford to "take it easy" otherwise, they mgith lose the match. i think players will be pushed to a higher level, but the game itself will be not as enjoyable, as players will be getting points for doing nothing, just waiting for the opposing player to make a mistake.
