New Straits Times » Sport Badminton/World Championships: Hadinata: Draw is unfair Vijesh Rai BIRMINGHAM, July 27: MALAYSIA will have ample support when team officials lodge a protest against the World Championships draw at today’s managers’ meeting in Birmingham. Indonesia, South Korea and China have indicated that they too perceive the draw, which sees several players from the same country in early round meetings, as unfair and they will support Malaysia when a protest is lodged. Indonesian chief coach Christian Hadinata said the International Badminton Federation did not utilise the separation of players from the same countries effectively and they will seek a redraw. "I don't understand how the draw was conducted. Not only are there several countries which will see their players meeting early on, the singles draw, especially, is pretty lopsided with as many as three players from the same country in the same half. "This is unfair, especially as IBF claimed that the nationality separation rule was used. If it was, how then did this happen," said Hadinata when met after training at the National Indoor Arena, the venue of the World Championships. Indonesia's Marleve Mainaky, Sony Dwi Kuncoro and Budi Santoso were all drawn in the same half, leaving only Taufik Hidayat to challenge in the bottom half. China's Xia Xuanze, Bao Chunlai and Lin Dan were all drawn in the bottom half with top seed Chen Hong the only one in the top half. Korea's Park Tae Sang and Lee Hyun Il are in the bottom half, as are Malaysia's Hafiz Hashim, brother Roslin and Lee Tsuen Seng. Malaysia are particularly hard hit as Hafiz and Roslin, should the unforseen not happen, will clash in the second round. This is a pity as both, on their day, can beat the best in the world, as they have proven before. Hadinata didn't come out and say it but the impression he gave was that there is a belief that the draw worked out in favour of the Europeans as the Asians will cancel each other out early. "I am not saying that the draw was tampered with but I certainly believe that more could have been done to ensure a more balanced draw." While it is difficult to see the four Asian teams winning this battle, especially as the competition gets underway tomorrow, a united front will go a long way in bolstering their campaign. It will also help ensure that in the future, IBF conducts the draw in a more balanced manner. Otherwise, badminton will be the loser.
I think that "unfair" here is very subjective. Looking at it from another perspective, if players from the same country knock themselves out in earlier rounds, there will be a better chance of having more countries still represented in the later rounds i.e. less chance of a couple of countries dominating all others. Of course it would mean that some highly skilled players will lose the opportunity to compete in the later rounds. Basically, there is no black and white right and wrong here.
It is obviousley quite difficult, as you have some high seeded players eg. chen against other chinese eg. bao chunlai could have met in the first round. In foot ball in the cjampions league in europe they only have four teams from each country playing and teams from the same country are not allowed to meet until the after the quarter finals, for example if all four spanish teams get through to qf then they are automatically put in seperate draws. I dont belive this could work however as could mean that each country with four players could have one, or all players out before qf, eg china and malaysia, say for example chen, xia,bao,lin and then wong,lee,roslin,hafiz, if they were as the previous method all of players from one country could meet in 3rd round and so have no one in the quarters, would they be more upset about that? The way the seeding should work is that a seeded player shouldnt meet another seeded player until last 32 (assuming 32 seeds) or last 16 with 16 seeds etc. that way the onus is on the individual to create a ranking to give him a better seeding, the world champs is not a team event, but an individual, the draw is as the saying goes "the luck of the draw", malaysia should be be glad they got two people to 2nd round England arent that lucky. well done to all winners and wong as i felt he came out with tremendous credit in the final, which was a joy to watch. feel sorry for gao, as felt she was unlucky that zhang had very bad day, and as a huge fan felt she deserved to be champion of both, as i feel she is best mixed woman. also in the womens double final almost every rally she stamped her authority by creating the lift or winner from nowhere.
I don't seem to like the 'imbalance' of the situation here as it is very apparent that 'team orders' or 'matchfixing' could really spoil the competition, as pointed out in a recent controversy of matchfixing earlier. But reluctantly, I would have to agree with nSmash here. If you are good, you will win it regardless of the opponent. But I still think it's best to split the countrymen to make sure that it is exciting as different players from different countries will have different style of playing. One could also get bored of seeing two or three consecutive games that involves players from the same nationality, unless it's very exciting though...
However the popularity of badminton could suffer if we split them up as most media attention is on the semis and finals, splitting countries representatives up could posibly mean all chinese/malaysian/etc semis and finals, not good for the uneducated observer.
No sympathy There is an easy way to split the players. LIke James said, get a seeded place. If you want to know how to get a seeded place, the answer is easy. Play more tournaments and do well. For M'sia, Lee TS, Hafiz, Roslin did not get consistent results. Lin Dan was unseeded. When players from the same country meet early, the 'pool' of remaining players means that they are more likely to meet their own countrymen (you can calculate the probablities). So my solution is for those countries shouting 'unfair' to try to ensure their players get as high a seeded position as possible. Otherwise, only send your top player/s
Badminton is firstly an individual sport, (except for china), so we shouldn't worry too much about same country playing each other. Like Cheung said there are problems with the ranking system but it is up to the countries to exploit the ranking system to the best advantage, by playing more events, this will be good for the game anyway as weaker events will get more big name stars. In fact the rest of the world has an advantage over China in the WC opposed to other events since their entries are limited to 4. It is quite possible that China could flood any draw, especially in ladies events meaning their team tactics would be unbeatable. I have heard of China fixing matches even at euro junior events !!!
I just happen to find this forum I also happen to read this thread It is surprising to see one-sided dominant supports here to IBF changing the rules of draw. Since no one here understands the other side of the story. Just let post my first article, and let me just say something different. Let me also say sorry at first if you feel offended. The most prode thing you guys claimed repeat, 3peat and 4peat, again, and again and again is that "Badminton is firstly an individual sport". Saying too many times doesn't validate its correctness. If Badminton is Truely an individual sport, how come each country can have only 4 players to play at WC, only 2 or 3 players to play at Olympic? IBF, Who give you the right to deprive individual's rights to play not based on his/her performance, ranking positing, but simply nationality??? Badminton is far away from individaul sport. Not only because of the above reason. But also, most important, even the best players, cannot support their lives by just playing the sport. No commercial sponsors can provide them the basic necessity either. Without the national governments' support, few player can continue their careers like tennis, or other sports. So please don't compare badmintion to other sport, they are different! If what all you guys said is correct, how come most of the people interested in this are against it??? It is not for China to dominant in this sport, otherwise, how to explain most counties against it, not only China, but also Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, even Japan? It is just because those white people (not all of them, just some important part of them) are SICK! White people are dominant in tennis, soccor, then they accused asians slow, stupid, and too weak. Whie asians are dominant in badminton, they still accused asians are monster and evil. There are not many tounaments (with few money) available for players to participate in a year. Especially the tounaments in the far west Europe. Asian players may just have one chance in a year to play over there. They spent all their money, all their time and effort for it. But they don't want to just go there, and play their brother in the 2nd round!!! It is not about which country's plot to dominant the sport, it is just about the basic human rights for the player!!!
If it is an individaul event as you claimed, how come you get bored of seeing games that involves players from the same nationality??? It is really hypocritical, and truely sick! It really reflects the dark side of your heart. So when you complain for seeing two Chinese in finals, it is just your loser's cry
2cents You are right , there is a contradiction between badminton being an individual sport and the limit placed on national entries. I think for the world champs the best players in the world should be there, and if that means Denmark having 6 mens singles or china having 8 womens singles then so be it. The problem with this is it would open the event to even greater potential for unfair team orders. For instance due to nationality rules Flandi/Eng did not play, they would have been top contenders having beaten all the top pairs at some point this year. I don't realy understand your comments about "white people" so I think we'll just ignore them. I don't think anyone would dispute that they'd rather see two different nationalites play with opposing sets of fans than the same nationality. The atmosphere for the players, spectators and viewers is simply better with national rivalry, also there is likely to be a greater contrast in style, build etc, all making for a better match. I would quite happily see china win all 5 titles if they deserved them. By that I mean because they truly are the best players in the world, not because they are employing team tactics to defeat their opponents by giving their players effective byes....
My goodness, there's no need to get carried away here. I do like seeing players from China, Indonesia and Korea play as well. I do not object seeing domination in events of sorts but won't it be more interesting to see different nationals play instead of the same country? As dlp had explained, there's that special difference when it comes to the atmosphere when it is this way, compared to when two same countrymen(women) play in the finals. Indeed. Of course they can choose to do it that way but won't that betray the 'competitiveness' ?
