Gopi Chand has it tough

By Prakash Padukone

SEVILLE, JUNE 6.The second day of the individual events of the World badminton championships, currently in progress at San Pablo Stadium here Spain witnessed hectic activity as more than 104 matches were completed on seven courts in two sessions.

The Indian challenge as expected rests on the broad shoulders of reigning all England champion Pullela Gopi Chand who happened to be the only Indian survivor in the tournament with the defeat of Diju and Sanave Thomas in the men's doubles second round against the Chinese pair of Cheng Rui and Wang Wei. Gopi had to struggle hard to get the better of Kevin Han of USA, who had created a mild flutter yesterday by defeating the more experienced Indonesian Johan Hadikusuma in the first round.

Gopi's next opponent in the prequarterfinals will be Fung Permadi of Chinese Taipei who prevailed over the giant killer B. Gallet of France, conquerer of 16th seed George Rimarcdi of Sweden. Though a veteran at 32, Fung should not be taken lightly as he has good experience behind him. He was the runner up in the previous World championships to Sun Jun of China in Copenhagen in 1999 and has also won the Grand Prix finals once in 1999. Although his reflexes have slowed down and he is much slower on his feet, Fung can still be a hard nut to crack. He showed this in no uncertain terms when he outclassed Bertrand Gallet 15-9, 15-2.

On the other hand Gopi, looking a little sluggish and jaded, was made to earn his victory by Kevin Han in three games 15-6, 11-15, 15-7. Gopi was not his usual confident self from the beginning and committed many unforced errors to allow Kevin to take a 5-0 lead. There was a long argument at this stage with the umpire regarding the speed of the shuttle forcing him to seek the intervention of the chief referee. Both players stuck to their stance and finally the matter was resolved amicably to the satisfaction of both players.

When play resumed after a brief interval, Gopi was the first to go off the block . He struck a purple patch from then on and won the game comfortably conceding only one more point to Kevin. However the lefthander had other ideas in the second game. He quickly took leads of 9-1 and 12-3 taking advantage of the lapse in Gopi's concentration .

As Gopi became tentative playing his shots, Kevin increased the pace. Gopi was hesitant to flick from the net as a couple of them went short. He therefore decided to play more at the net . This made his game look mechanical and also Kevin started anticipating his net shots. With both players preferring to serve low most of the time and trying to go on the attack at the first opportunity, rallies were few and far between. Both of them made silly errors in the first two games. Although Gopi trailed by 9 points at one stage in the second game, he did not allow Kevin to run away with the game. He made the American run while Gopi reduced the defecit from 3-12 to 11-13.

Even though the Indian lost that game 11-15, it helped him in the decider as Kevin could not keep pace with the Indian and surrendered the game 7-15. A few more seeds fell by the wayside today as well . Reigning Olympic champion Ji Xinpeng of China became the fourth seeded player to be shown the door in the men's singles. The other seeds who have already lost in the men's singles are Richard Vaughan (no 10), Shon Seung Mo (no 15) and George Rimarcdi (no 16). The credit for creating the fourth upset went to Agus Harianto of Hong Kong who got the better of Ji in three games.

Rimarcdi loses

Only other seed to be toppled on the first day apart from Richard Vaughan of Wales was 16th seeded George Rimarcdi of Sweden who went down in three games to Bertrand Gallet of France. This was a good victory for the Frenchman for badminton is still in its infancy in France compared to some of the other European nations like Denmark, Sweden, England, Germany, Netherlands etc.

In the other matches played which featured Indians all except the men's doubles pair of Diju and Sanave Thomas made their exit. Our mixed doubles combination of Diju and P.V.V. Lakshmi almost defeated the 18th ranked British pair of Graham Hurrel and Sarah Hardakar before losing the final game 11-15. Jaseel Ismail and Madhumita Bisht were no match for the fourth seeded duo of Bambang Suprianto and Minarti Timur and lost 4-15, 8-15. Diju and Thomas scored an easy 15-2, 15-0 win over Czech pair P. Martine and Jan Frohlich.

Manjusha Kanwar found the going too tough against Marina Andrievskaya of Sweden, ranked fourth in the world and lost 3-11, 3-11.

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