World badminton champion Taufik Hidayat began the defense of his title with a solid win on Tuesday and a message to the game's governing body to update itself and use cameras to eliminate line call controversies.
"It's time the game became more professional about that," the Indonesian said after his 21-17, 21-17 win over Ng Wei of Hong Kong in the first round in the Palacio de Deportes.
It was in Hong Kong earlier in the month that Hidayat had been so upset by what he regarded as home town decisions in favor of Lin Dan, the world number one from China, that he picked up his bags and rackets and walked out after only five points.
PHOTO: AP
He had threatened to do the same thing after controversial line calls in Korea last month, and now Hidayat made clear that he did not want to suffer any more of it.
"I don't want what happened at the Hong Kong Open to happen again," he said. "I want to see cameras for line decisions, so that if anyone disputes a decision we can see whether it was right."
What Taufik had in mind was something similar to the Hawkeye computerized replays and appeals system, which produces an image from several cameras placed on different sides of the court.
This was used successfully at the US Open tennis championships in New York earlier this month, and Wimbledon is said to be considering it too.
But at the moment the International Badminton Federation has no plans to follow suit.
Hidayat's straight games win over an opponent who had been seeded to reach the last 16 was nominally an upset, but Ng was only placed in the unfortunate position of having to face the world champion in the first round because Taufik was unseeded after having problems with his back which has restricted his tournament schedule this year.
At the moment Taufik seems fit, though he is not talking up his chances.
"I'm just going to take it one game at a time," he said.
"But I'm very happy with my game, and I pleased to say that I have no injury."
He next has a comfortable-looking match against Kestutis Navickas of Lithuania, but the man most likely to suffer from such a dangerous floater in the draw is Chen Hong, the former All-England champion.
Chen is seeded to reach the last eight, but may never make it as he should face Hidayat in the last 16, though the Chinese player was in emphatic form against Pedro Yang, despite the tricky drift, and overwhelmed the experienced Guatemalan 21-11, 21-9.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier