Gail and Nathan have just done the business! It's 3:20 am and I'm knackered! Incidentally, I've noticed that the players rub the cork end of a new shuttle against their strings, anybody know why? And well done Tracey in the Singles! Best Wishes Derek
hiya derek, yeah i'm just watched it too the ws was brilliant - didnt' really expect wong mew choo to lose that really, so even more well done to tracey as for rubbing the end of the cork.. i believe that it's too do with keeping their eye on it. rubbing the end of the cork leaves a mark on the shuttle - which players use as a visual marker to lock on to when theyre hitting the shuttle. different methods are used in different sports, our cricket coach used to put coloured spots on the ball and ask us to tell him what color it was before we hit the ball.. needless to say it dramatically improved the hit rate.
I noticed that it only used to be Nathan that did this,now it has spread to the entire English doubles fleet. Probably just a psychological thing so everyone asks "what are they doing rubbing the shuttle on their strings and why?"
Well done to the Kiwis too! It's good for NZ to have players reach tournament finals. Apart from these two (Daniel Shirley and Sara Runesten Peterson) we rarely get any TV coverage of the sport. It's great talking to all my friends/neighbours/relatives who have just seen it on TV for the first time. Pretty much all of them previous to this had that common misconception that Badminton was just a casual, slow, weak sport in which people lobbed shuttles into the air in their spare time. All of these people were really impressed and kind of shocked at how fast and competitive it was! So it's good for us to have had our mixed pair reach the finals, these Commonwealth Games have really raised awareness of the sport. In fact our local clubs have even had a few new additions during this time . But anyway congratulations on the gold !
Its great to know the NZ got a medal in Badminton. Hope that this will be a good publicity and raise the game profile in NZ. Congrat to England for winning the gold.
Yet another fine showing by the Kiwians! IMHO, apart from the top 6 pairs, Shirley/Runesten-Petersen is easily best of the lot. Their performances over the past few months after the WC have been pretty consistent and they deserve the silver medal in the CG this time! Hope to see more of their good performance in the coming months.... Here's a summary of their performance: World Championships 2005 SF (lost to Xie Zhongbo/Zhang Yawen) New Zealand Open 2005 WINNER Greece Open 2005 QF (lost to Ingo Kindervater/Katrin Piotrowski) Bitburger Open 2005 RUNNER-UP (lost to Vladislav Druzchenko/Johanna Persson) Denmark Open 2005 QF (lost to KKK/WPT) Hong Kong Open 2005 1/16 (lost to Lee Jae Jin/Lee Hyo Jung) China Open 2005 QF (lost to Lee Jae Jin/Lee Hyo Jung) Swiss Open 2006 1/16 (lost to Robert Mateusiak/Nadiezda Kostiuczyk) German Open 2006 SF (lost to Zhang Jun/Gao Ling) All England 2006 1/32 (lost to Jens Eriksen/Mette Schjoldager) Oceanic Open 2006 WINNER Commonwealth Games 2006 RUNNER-UP (lost to Nathan Robertson/Gail Emms)
i really do hope that the popularity of badminton raises in the oceanic region...and dan shirley is also my fav kiwi player hehe...he's really good... And N robertson and Gail Emms are my current fav european pair...Gail is soo damn good in the front court... Congrats to all...I guess badminton at this games was quite a success
they rub the end of for one reason. i do it and its because it wears the shuttle in. a brand new shuttle will have no string striations in it and can fly quickly or bobble of the racket. i used to serve in the net with a new shuttle and by rubbing it on my strings it gives the shuttle some use before being hit so it flys more smoothly. it is kind of psycological as well. hope this makes sense.
Talking about Nathan Robertson, I was very close to getting his Carlton racket...I was just 3steps down from where he threw at us. Anyway, well done to him and Gail. At least I get to watched his smash at 285km/h.
Are you sure the serving into the net with a new shuttle is not psychological Ben? Coming from anyone else i would say that is the case but not from an established player on the junior tour. I have enver seen anyone else doing this before Nathan and now almost the entire England doubles teams were doing it. Do have to say i saw Simon Archer play in the early rounds and thoughgt he would make it a bit further than he did He is certainly a character and very motivational on court. On the other hand why does Nathan shout when he smashes? Is that another psychological thing? I stayed up and watched the match but i thought the first game was tight but the second one was a bit more one sided.