The Hindu : Sport / Badminton : Malaysia, Korea claim honours

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 20, 2006

Sport

Sport - Badminton

Malaysia, Korea claim honours

Rakesh Rao

JAIPUR: The Malaysian men denied Korea a `double' in the Thomas Cup and Uber Cup Asian preliminaries with a 3-2 victory in a marathon final at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium here on Sunday.

Earlier, Arvind Bhat's superb 21-13, 21-15 victory over World number 42 Simon Santoso was the only bright spot in India's 1-3 loss to Indonesia in the battle for the third place.

The Thomas Cup final was the only close contest of the final day. The Malaysians pulled off all three singles in straight games. The Koreans took the doubles to level the match twice during the 221-minute finale.

In the Uber Cup final, favourite Korea did not drop a game to Chinese Taipei and won in one hour and 43 minutes. Singapore, too, raced away to a 3-0 victory to take the third spot at the expense of a listless Hong Kong.

Commonwealth team

The Badminton Association of India (BAI) has left out B. R. Meenakshi from the five-member women's team for the Commonwealth Games to be held in Melbourne next month.

Speaking to mediamen after being re-elected for another four-year term, the BAI President V. K. Verma removed all doubts over the selection of nine-time National champion Aparna Popat. The other members of the squad are Trupti Murgunde, Saina Nehwal, G. Jwala and Shruti Kurian.

The BAI had earlier submitted a six-member team that included Meenakshi but was made to prune the squad to five as per the rules of the Commonwealth Games.

However, there is still some suspense over the inclusion of Chetan Anand, ranked 26, the highest Indian in the world, in the men's team. The toss-up seems to be between Arvind Bhatt and Chetan. National champion Anup Sridhar, Sanave Thomas, Rupesh Kumar and V. Diju pick themselves. In fact, Diju and Jwala will combine in the mixed doubles event at Melbourne.

The results: Thomas Cup: Final: Malaysia beat Korea 3-2 (Lee Chong Wei bt Lee Hyun Il 21-10, 21-17; Chan Chong Ming and Koo Kien Keat lost to Lee Jae Jin and Han Sang Hoon 20-22, 19-21; Hafiz Hashim bt Park Sung Hwan 21-23, 23-21, 21-7; Lin Woon Fui and Mohammad Tazari lost to Jung Jae Sung and Lee Yong Dae 21017, 13-21, 15-21; Kuan Beng Hong bt Lee Cheol Ho 21-15, 21-12).

For third place: Indonesia beat India 3-1 (Sony Kuncoro bt Chetan Anand 21-13, 21-18; Luluk Hadiyanto and Alvent Yulianto bt Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas 21-12, 21-11; Simon Santoso lost to Arvind Bhatt 21-13, 21-15; Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan bt V. Diju and Jaseel P. Ismail 21-6, 22-20).

Uber Cup: Final: Korea beat Chinese Taipei 3-0 (Seo Yoon Hee bt Huang Chia Hsin 21-13, 21-13; Lee Kyung Won and Ha Jung Eun bt Chien Yu Chyin and Cheng Wen Hsing 21-17, 29-27; Lee Yun Hwa bt Chiu Yu Ju 21-8, 21-14).

For third place: Singapore beat Hong Kong 3-0 (Xing Aiying bt Wong Sin Yee 21-13, 21-16; Liu Fen Frances bt Ng Ka Shun 21-17, 16-21, 21-11; Sari Shinta Mulya 21-9, 21-17).

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