How the sport works
In singles badminton, the first athlete to reach twenty one points wins that particular game. A player needs to win two games to win the overall match. The only difference in doubles is that there are two players per team.
This was early in the preliminary round so there were no medals on the line today, though the match results would dictate players’ seeding.
It was clear that while badminton may not be a big sport in the west, it is absolutely huge in Asia. I saw the number one ranked mixed doubles pair of China, the number three ranked player from China, and the number four ranked men’s doubles team from South Korea.
Matches took place simultaneously on three side by side courts, so there was a lot of action to watch.
Because shuttlecocks are sensitive to air conditioning, there was no AC in the venue. It got so hot that one cameraman kept falling asleep!
Thailand easily beat Taiwan 2-0 in the mixed doubles and the support they got from two extremely vocal fans helped them enormously! The crowd loved these guys and were happy to follow anyone they cheered for.
Indonesia walloped Estonia in the men’s singles. At one point, the Indonesian swung his racquet to return a rally and the shuttle got stuck in his racquet (no picture of that unfortunately)!
The world’s fifth ranked woman from India destroyed Switzerland in a match that lasted only twenty four minutes (the others were all over thirty some minutes).
The best match of the session was number thirteen of Singapore versus number four of Japan in the women’s singles. Singapore really stepped up their game and gave Japan a run for their money. In the end, Japan won 2-1, but it took them a lengthy eighty five minutes minutes to do so. The longest rally lasted a impressive sixty two strokes and the longest duration of a rally was seventy two seconds! It may not sound like along time but, believe me, it was a hard fought point!
I’m not likely to take up badminton anytime soon, but it was fun to see a sport I’ve had relatively little exposure to being played at such a high level.
