DUTCH INTERNATIONAL – Home Players Withdraw In an unprecedented move the top two men’s seeds Dicky Palayma and Eric Pang and number three and four women’s seeds Jie Yao and Judith Meulendijks have sensationally withdraw from their home Dutch International which is due to start this Thursday. With Olympic qualification stripped from the quartet by their home NOC, and a rule that seemingly makes little or no sense, it seems that they can find no reason to take part in their home event. The Dutch NOC criteria for qualification state that a player must achieve two Super Series quarter finals or a semi final at the Europeans to qualify for selection within the qualifying period. Palyama (WR 36), Pang (WR39), Yao (WR 19) and Meulendijks (WR 22) fail to meet these strict criteria and thus miss out on Beijing 2008. If the quartet had played for any other country in Europe both the top man and ladies singles player would have qualified. This decision to skip the event is sure to be a major step back for organisational committee of the Dutch International and the Dutch Federation who are simply caught in the middle - even if it is perfectly understandable from the player's point of view as they have spent a year of intense training and travelling to be eventually told they are to stay at home this summer.
DUTCH INTERNATIONAL – More Top Seeds Withdraw The Dutch International continues to be plagued with withdrawals in the lead-up to the start of the tournament tomorrow. After losing all the top Dutch players earlier in the week, the organisers now have to deal with withdrawal of recent European women’s doubles champions (and thus surefire Olympic qualifiers) Lena Frier Kristiansen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl and number 1 mixed doubles pairing of Robert Mateusiak and Nadiezda Kostiuczyk of Poland. The men’s doubles top pairing from Poland, which also features Robert Mateusiak, have also withdrawn.
4 - 0 All my PAW ladies coming through for me in WSR16 including Anne Hald: Anne Hald Jensen - Helen Davies: 14-21 21-5 21-19 [0:49] I see pictures have been posted at the tournament website. So far only dutch players playing on thursday ... http://www.velo-badminton.nl/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=397&Itemid=227
Holy cr*p 4 points in a row for Wakita to take the 2nd 21-19 from 17-19 down. I had this marked down as a win already ... I should be 6-0 for R16 including the men (7 if I had posted the Vittinghus one).
This Japanese gal is very stubborn, levelled at 11-all from 7-11 down before Anu leads 13-11... Wow what a comeback by Yu Wakita winning 20-22 21-19 21-19.
Too stubborn in the end, again from behind in the 3rd. Deja vu today looks just like the Ipsen match ... Guess you could have had 6 more points today but at least the replacements were straight set victories.