MALAYSIA OPEN 2008 FINAL – China bags “only two”

Indonesia banks again on young duo

In men’s doubles, unseeded Danes Lars Paaske and Jonas Rasmussen were up against 2nd-seeded Indonesians Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan (pictured here on the podium) for the last match of the day, which was to be one of the best ones of this incredibly tense afternoon of finals. The veterans from Denmark couldn’t do much about the excited Indonesians, who were in control of the 1st game. Markis Kido pelted many of his strong smashes across the court and this led to 10 game points and resulted in an easy 21-10 win. The experienced Danes lacked power in the second game and the crowd thought that the final match of the day might just end there. But one had to taken into account the Dane’s fighting spirit and Paaske and Rasmussen clawed their way back to a 19-all tie before finally taking the game 22-20.

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The 4th and last tie breaker of the day began. The Danes led 4-1 and 7-5 until the Indonesian youngsters matched them at 7-all. Kido continued with his ruthless killing smashes, while the Danes banked on their flat play. The young world champions, though, were determined to grab the 1st title of the year and stomped over the veterans 21-18 and were announced champions 48 minutes after the match had started.

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“This stadium is our lucky stadium, as we have been crowned here twice already! But we still need to focus on our game as we didn’t play at our best today“ said the Indonesians.

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“We are still very happy about our performance here, even if we didn’t win. We beat two top pairs and it proves we are back”, said the Danes.

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The medal ceremony for the men’s doubles event put a full stop to the 2008 Proton Malaysia Open, the 1st Super Series of the new-year. The players had to pack quickly to make their way to Korea, while some others had already flown to the Korean capital – amongst which was Peter Gade, who was able to make it after having to withdraw from the Malaysia Open.

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Losing the singles events, China still bagged two gold medals, thanks to their young but hard-fighting pair of He and Yu. World Champions Kido and Setiawan, on their hand, continue their winning strike in Bukit Jalil for a beautiful ending of the Proton Malaysia Badminton Open.

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The day started with the mixed doubles event between the Lee Yong-Dae/Lee Hyo-Jung of Korea and He Hanbin/Yu Yang of China. The spectators were already so excited that they were screaming the names of the players as they started the game.

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The game was certainly not in favour of the 6th-seeded Chinese at the beginning. The two were unstable and did not show much experience in their play. The Koreans toyed with them and left them behind slightly. Both He Hanbin and Yu Yang (photo) had a very slow and wobbly start until they managed to tie the game at 8-all.

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The Chinese then started to dictate the rhythm of the game and began overpowering the Koreans. Yu Yang had everything her way at the net and returned the shuttles accurately across the horizontal line. Lee Yong-Dae and Lee Hyo-Jung, who just weren’t taking the initiative, crawled slowly and met the Chinese again at 14-all. Those were all the points the pair of Lee’s would get, however, and the Chinese slammed the door on the 1st game at 21-14.

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The 2nd game obviously belonged to the Chinese. However, the spectators, who were behind the Koreans, continued to show their most fervent support. They were cheering the name of the country and also, the name of the adorable youngster Lee Yong-Dae. Still, their cheers didn’t seem to help. The pumped-up Chinese had a total of 12 smashes that hit the Koreans far behind and the latter could do nothing but try to defend. Not long after, in exactly 36 minutes, the Koreans bowed to He Hanbin and Yu Yang, 21-15.