April 29th NST THE International Badminton Federation (IBF) will decide on May 6 whether the 21-point system will be implemented or if they will revert to the 15-point system. There is also the possibility that the IBF may decide on trying out the new point system till the end of the year. IBF deputy president Datuk Punch Gunalan said the new scoring system (21-point) will be the main agenda at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Tokyo. "The future of the 21-point system will depend on whether IBF affiliates will vote in favour or against it at the meeting," said Gunalan yesterday. He also revealed that other important matters such as the players' attire will be discussed in the meeting. The new scoring system utilises the point-per-rally format, in a best of three 21-point games was introduced last February by IBF with the aim of making popularising and marketing the sport better. It was first introduced during the Thomas Cup qualifying rounds in Jaipur, India, last February. This was the second time in three years the IBF had experimented with a new scoring system to replace the 15-point system. The Federation had put the seven-point system (best of five games) on trial between May 2002 and April 2003 but had to revert to the 15-point system after the seven-point system was strongly opposed by the majority of the affiliates. The 21-point system has received mixed reviews since it was implemented in tournaments. Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei said that he did not find the new system of 21 points challenging enough. "I may be winning tournaments using this system but it does not excite me. It doesn't challenge our fitness and skills as the game finishes fast." The 24-year-old Chong Wei also said the system was good for attacking players but not for those who depend on their skills to win matches. Meanwhile, Japanese player Shoji Sato said the new system will give a chance to lower ranked players to win against higher-ranked shuttlers. "A player must stay focused throughout the match and must avoid making silly mistakes," added Shoji. The new system, however, received the thumbs down from China’s top women shuttlers - Zhang Ning and Xie Xinfang - who claimed that it was tiring. Zhang and Xie are the World and Olympic champions respectively.
Wrong: Xie and Zhang are the World and Olympic champions respectively. Interestingly, the IBF website has the World Championship results wrong, too. It shows WC finalist Zhang Ning as only a semi-finalist and semi-finalists Xu Huaiwen and Cheng Shao-Chieh as only quarter-finalists.
Meanhwhile I think that a change of the scoring system would make badminton more interesting and attractive. But not with this new scoring format 3x21. Why has table tennis abolished this format and introduced 5x11 or 7x11 with ralleypoints?? With 5x11 table tennis gets interesting at 7 Points in Badminton it starts with 10 or respectivly 17 points. Hence i think it would be best to go back to 5x7 or introduce as a new system with 5x11 and ralleypoint. To keep the traditional way of counting i would prefer 5x7. I don't know on which basis the IBF decides why he will use this or that format. It seems to be relativly arbitrarily
at first i wondered why they'd said that, but now i see where they are coming from....now they have to score 10 more pts to win a set(from 11 to 21)...hmm, quite interesting, as i thought all the points are scored no matter who's serving, which means the playing time is "shorter"..
Why are they thinking so long??.. ok guys, they will announce it in abt 3 days/2 days Japan time...let's hope they will revert back to the original 15 pts. system/11 pts for WS... with the recent QF finishes, one in abt 281 minutes total between NED and JPN(that's nearly 5 hrs.), i think now it should be clear that there is no "real" advantage with the new scoring system.. I hope CHN main players as well as Taufik and others(coaching staffs) who are oppose to it, can come out and voice their opinion..BTW, how will IBF decide this if *not all countries and players officially listed in IBF* are present in JPN??..
OK, the decision is almost here.. ..finally, they(Mr. Gunalan and his IBF compatriots) should make their final decision today(Japan time) after thinking long and hard about it..Hope all the IBF officials can sleep well on it tonight...sigh
I like the 21 scoring system. Player will have no chance to slack back a bit just because he get service back. This way I could witness the best performance from them. The old 15 scoring system has got more to do with stamina then skills.
To get best performance in 21point system players often tends to do routine playstyle and that is less fun for us fans. Players who have more skills and spectacular shot will have to think twice before excecuting a harder and more risky shot. Also, I think old scoring system shows how a player has to balance his skill to his stamina. Stamina alone cannot make you win a game. Beside, stamina should be considered as a skill also because it takes time to develop it and keep it. New scoring system is making this skill less important and that is not fair for players who's been working very hard. Old scoring system was better in a sense that there comebacks were easier and more challenging. For example when you are losing a game 20-16 its almost impossible to come back. I hope they will vote for old scoring system. I'll keep on praying...
tomorrow the decission will be made to go to 21 points or revert to 15 points. If it is for commecial resons there are not many differences in time of the games. So why not keep it on 15 point it was originally ment to be like this why change it, badminton is becoming more and more popular without changing.
Yes, I hope the 15 point system will be used again. The most important thing I also hope that IBF stop experimenting with the badminton point system. I hate it when they do that.
No, I think it's right that they try out alternatives. But somebody messes up with the conclusions so we go back to 3 x15 (3x11 for LS). If you like 15 points because of its ability for comebacks, then supporting a best of 5 games match is a natural extension of that idea.
I am sorry Cheung, I don't get what you mean. Do you mean best of 5 games with 21 point system? I will probably support it for MS games, but I think it will be too long for LS games.
whatever points system (not saying how many points shoudl be played), best of 5 games should have better potential for comebacks. C'mon, it's boring seeing a scoreline that says winner by 2 sets to 1. Seeing 3 sets to 2sets implies a much closer match.
Hope to hear soon.. ok, the AGM meeting will start in a several hrs now and hopefully someone who has access to the meeting can update us...tsk tsk tsk...
The meeting will not only discuss on point system but also on another important issue......firing its own VP - Punch Gunalan.
