Good news! Just realised that will be live braodcast of the Hong Kong Open 2003 Final on Astro SuperSport from 1.30pm to 5pm..
Great. Now I just had to buy one and install the thing before the game begins. It goes without saying that it's gonna be on Astro (ESPN or SS) except for some reason that we will never know. A Malaysian pair is in the Finals and RTM didn't bother to let us mortals who can't afford Astro to partake in the atmosphere, instead showing lots of nonsense that people don't even watch.
Hk Open Final Mixed was a great match despite score. Zhang/Gao learning from Europeans mixing up game and looking for openings. Choong and Lee played well, must be the good food they have been gobbling whilst in HK. Never saw Cheung in the stadium althogh camera tried to capture everyone. Almost full stadium, nothing like that in Msia nowadays. Nice to see our HK friends and relatives so prosperous looking and well fed, despite all the negative things mentioned in papers. Unfortunately it rained and half the men's singles match was wiped out from the TV screen because of interruptions.
Well, you got more than us on TV! Didn't you hear me heckling during the Men's doubles? HK people are quite quiet (not as much as Japanese, though). I was sitting with some of the backup guys directly opposite the camera. Maybe about 6 rows up. (near the level of Fu Hai Feng who was videotaping). I also think Chong and Lee played well. Their driving game is almost on par with the Koreans. The main weakness I see is Lee lifting the shuttle on occasions where low shots might be better. Once the shuttle is lifted, the koreans had a much better chance of winnning the point (same in q/f). This happened at 6-9 Lee serving - flick serve Yoo, and lost the point when they had won 4 points on the run to pull back from 2-9 down. After that, they lost the momentum and psychology. It was always goijng to be really tough from then on.
You should have seen M'sian team on saturday after Choong/Lee beat Eriksen/Lundgaard. They were really happy! Yap Kim Hock was beaming smiles all over the place. It was really nice to see. Tang Xin Fu was watching as well - we were very high up. We asked for his picture. I think he was pleasantly surprised and acknowledged us when we bumped into him later.
I'm sure yap kim hock is still happy despite the team lost to the koreans. I hope they will improve on the next tourney.
I wouldn't be too concerned as Supersports is sure to run repeats in Singapore and hk.Mixed and men's doubles good. Men's singles over-rated, I think LinDan's game quite predictable, people observing his style will know how to play him.