hmm.. went there at early morning around 11am and stayed there til 9pm at night.. There were 5 courts and games were being played almost simultinously. well, it was a rather interesting and insightful experience for me..almost all e players seated were close to the spectator stand and i could see some moving about. I saw sang yang , zheng bo and e chinese coach lookin at some shirts and zheng bo was trying to buy a yonex tracksuit pant. then i saw some japan players also queueing up to buy some food, they were eating hotdogs. Also saw simon santoso talkin on his hp after his defeat and wong choon hann outside the stadium on his phone looking rather dejected after losing to hafiz hashim but earleir on he was actually talking to zhang ning & some chinese youth girls in green . *noted he was wrapping on a yellow towel grip. Also saw chinese players jogging round insisde e stadium and pi hongyan doing some footwork on top. she looks rather focus and concentrated. mens singles were played twice a day., with 1 in e morning and later at night. i also noticed some korean girls using a squash racket or a badminton racket with the bat to swing around, lee kyung won was also teasing zhang jiewen, they looked like friends. Nathan robertson was also showing off some bad behaviour after his loss in e mens doubles. he threw his racket and began to kick boxes and things on the floor along the way. Overall the attendance was fairly good and players could be seen clearly, peter gade had the most fans mainly from young kids asking for autographs and boonsak had the most cheers. couldnt see any badmintoncentral banner anywhere though.
hey thanks for sharing. would you be going today? today's matches promises a whole lot of excitement. and you might be able to witness nathan r. kicking more boxes around should he lose the MXD. but it's good to be able to let out some emotions once in a while rather than to coop them up, you know? the banners will be up a-sailing during the semis/ finals no doubt. that's when they matter most anyway. hope they'll catch it on astro.
I was watching the MD match between the young Korean pair Han/Hwang and Sang/Zheng. I was sitting at the West End and was pretty close to two Korean coaches. About 10 minutes after the match (which the Koreans won), both players went to report to these two coaches. Their hands behind their back, they stood still while the first coach reprimanded them. After he finished, the two players bowed and went to stand before the second coach. The second coach's tone was more friendly. Anyway, I was a little embarrased to be nearby during the reprimand. This must be how all the Korean players are treated, especially when they are young.
