Yes, but
The Chinese domination in small paddle sports continues...where the hell is Engerland NOW? Someone must break this stranglehold! First ping pong, now badminton...crap, soon we'll be fending them off with a bit of help from Canada in racquetball as well!
China produces two new
world badminton champs
Posted: 6:04 AM (Manila Time) | Aug. 05, 2003
Agence France-Presse
Briefer affair
The women's final was a briefer affair.
It was clear from the moment that second-seeded Zhang dispatched Camilla Martin, the former world champion from Denmark for the loss of only six points in the quarterfinals that she was in outstanding form, and had made herself the unofficial favorite for the title.
However, there were signs of early match nerves as Zhang quickly went 4-0 down in the biggest final of her life, before finding her touch and rhythm.
She signaled that she had settled down with a wonderfully disguised net shot return which left Gong stranded and soon was advancing from 3-5 to 7-5 confidently.
Zhang then made another run of four points from 7-6 to take the game, finishing with a backhand block lifted to such a perfect length that it landed on the baseline.
The early stages of the second game saw the most competitive phase of the match, with the serve constantly changing hands and Gong fighting hard to hang on to her title.
But she did not have the creativity of the older player, and after Zhang won a long rally, full of accurate clearing and disguised drops, completing it with a deft net exchange, to reach 3-3 she got on top.
Gong only served twice more in the match, as Zhang caressed the shuttle to all four corners with increasing fluency, with the champion forced to over-stretch to try to stay in it.
Gong lost the title when she put an ambitious smash into the net.
Earlier Zhang Jun and Gao Ling also lost a world title, the mixed doubles, when they were well beaten for the second time in four months by the former champions Kim Dong-Moon and Ra Kyung-Min.
Indeed the Chinese pair might have lost more heavily to the brilliant Koreans than by 15-7, 15-8, for they were consistently outplayed and only picked up three or four consolation points at the end of each game when they were already down and out.
Kim, widely regarded as the best doubles player in the world when fully fit, has now won eight Grand Prix doubles titles in the last 16 months, and the victory was consolation for Kim's defeats in two world finals last time, two years ago in Seville.
China won three titles and Asia four. The only European success saw Sigit Budiarto and Candra Wijaya foiled in their attempt to win the world men's doubles title back, as they were beaten 15-7, 13-15, 15-13 by Lars Paaske and Jonas Rasmussen of Denmark.
It was a massacre...
`Q
