Taken from Straits Times Interactive. --------------------------- He comes from behind to beat former champ, and now faces sixth-seed Sony By Peh Shing Huei RONALD SUSILO sent former world champion Peter Rasmussen a message yesterday at the World Badminton Championships: Sorry, but your best is behind you. The Singaporean came back from a game down in the second round to win 8-15, 15-12, 15-5 and dash the once-great Dane's dreams of reclaiming the world title. The prize for his tenacity is a mouth-watering bout today with the sixth-seeded Sony Dwi Kuncoro of Indonesia, who also saw off another Danish great - Peter Gade Christensen - in the first round. It is an encounter that Susilo thoroughly deserves, though last night's 66-minute battle with Rasmussen opened with the Dane suggesting a return to the heady days of 1997 when he was the world champion. Unseeded this time, the 29-year-old gave a splendid display of stylish, attacking badminton in the first game, pummelling 10th-seed Susilo with a series of overhead smashes and wrong-footing the Singaporean with deceptive lifts. Said Susilo: 'His net play was really tricky and it forced me into error after error.' Rasmussen wrapped up the game in 20 minutes and it seemed like he was back in the 1997 Glasgow final, where he beat China's Sun Jun after an epic two-hour struggle. But Susilo reminded him that he was in another British city - Birmingham - and six years older. The 24-year-old Thailand Open champion waited patiently for Rasmussen to tire and made his move when 4-8 down in the second game. Said the Dane: 'I don't know why, but everything fell apart after that.' Susilo knew why. The injury-plagued Dane was tiring - as manifested by his glare at a line judge whose decision he disagreed with, and then by the lifting of his leg to allow the same official a clear view of the shuttle on a similar baseline decision. Susilo cleverly moved him around the court. Rasmussen's airborne attacks were replaced by mistakes, and those accurate smashes became either wild or tame. A wild one that went a metre wide allowed Susilo to draw level at 8-8. Said Susilo: 'He got tired and was making a lot of unforced errors. I could tell that his confidence was dropping and I kept my focus to finish it off as quickly as possible.' But Rasmussen was defiant. He said: 'When I'm flowing, no one can keep up with me. I have the world's fastest legs.' After Susilo won 15-12 to force rubber game, the Dane had a mini-revival. He leapt to a 4-0 lead, but that was about it. Susilo surged to an 8-5 advantage, changed ends, and fired off 12 rapid, successive points to book a place in the third round. Apart from Susilo, the only other Singaporean left was Li Li. She was scheduled to meet Dutch 13th seed Judith Meulendijks in the second round early this morning. Xiao Luxi crashed 2-11, 9-11 to sixth-seed Xie Xingfang of China in the first round on Tuesday, and permanent resident Hendra Wijaya went out 6-15, 7-15 on Monday to another Chinese seeded player, Xia Xuanze (5). Singapore's two doubles pairs also had a brief taste of the World Championships. Permanent residents Denny Setyawan and Hendri Saputra lost to Jim Laugesen and Michael Sogaard (13) of Denmark 10-15, 6-15 in the first round and Singapore-born Chua Yong Joo and Khoo Kian Teck surrendered 7-15, 3-15 to Liu Kwok Wa and Albertus Susanto Njoto of Hong Kong. They were joined on the sidelines by several women's singles seeds: Sweden's Marina Andrievskaya (11), Japan's Miho Tanaka (14), Wales' Kelly Morgan (15), and England's Julia Mann (16), who crashed out in the first round. The top-seeded South Korean men's doubles pairing of Ha Tae Kwon and Kim Dong Moon were also eliminated, succumbing to Indonesian Yulianto Alven and Hadiyanto Luluk yesterday. The only men's singles seed to have fallen is Boonsak Polsana (12) of Thailand. By outlasting Rasmussen, Susilo staved off a similar fate as Boonsak - but he would need another pugnacious performance to progress past Sony today. Sony cantered to a 15-9, 15-3 win over Marco Vasconcelos of Portugal yesterday. While Rasmussen was fit enough to attack Susilo in just one game, the Singaporean can expect non-stop aerial bombardment from the athletic 19-year-old Sony. Susilo, last year's runner-up at the Singapore Open, has never played against the Indonesian and will start as the underdog. But he told Timesport: 'I have a chance with Sony.' Indeed. After yesterday, few would doubt that he has.
Strange article That's a strange article. I find it borders on being outright disrespectful towards Peter Rasmussen. As far as I have understood it, he played one and a half game of top badminton, and then was toppled by Susilo. And it also incorrectly quotes Rasmussen: the quote "I have the world's fastest legs" is just something that Peter would never say. It is contrary to his humble nature. What he in fact said (it's in Danish on the DBF site) is that "not many can keep up" when he's flowing. Quite a difference. Just for the record. And by the way, hi again everybody! I'm back from a looong vacation, enjoying life as a newly become father of a beautiful daughter. It's great to see so many new "faces" on BF!
