Korea Open 2008

Another "bad boy" title from the badminton arena this year. This time, he is not Taufik, but Lin Dan. 

It was the final day of the Korea Open - Jan 27 and the locals had 2 matches to cheer. The first match was the mixed doubles, Lee Yong Dae - Lee Hyo Jung up against the world number 4 Flandi Limpele - Vita Marissa. I managed to watch the rubber set as i woke up late that day and it was thrilling. Cant believe the Koreans won, i thought it is going to be on the hands of the Indonesians due to their ranking and experience, lol.

Next, it was the women's singles match between Zhou Mi from Hong Kong and Lu Lan from China. Again, no winners from China in the women's singles after 2 Super Series.

Up next is the men's singles match, the most dramatic and never seen incident happened in the badminton world. In the first set, it was rather boring and the crowds were disappointed seeing their local man being beaten by Lin Dan with the humiliating score 4-21. The Korean was fired up after absorbing all the tricks and advices by his coach Li Mao, he got used to the drift in the stadium and grabbed the 2nd set. In the decider, both players landed at 20-20 and this was where the drama started. The linesman called a shuttle which was clearly out as in. Before that, there were 4 bad line calls from the linesmen which all 4 favoured the local boy and Mr Umpire from Czech overruled all 4 lines to Lin Dan. But not this time, the Umpire did not overruled and gave the match point to the Korean. Lin Dan shouted at the umpire and Li Mao (Korea coach) stormed out and shouted at Lin Dan which erupted Lin Dan's temper and he threw his racquet towards Li Mao(it didnt hit him), the assistant tournament referee quickly calmed things down and picked up Lin Dan's racquet asking him to resume the game. Instead, things got even worst, both coaches were involved in the fight, shoving, pushing each other, see who is tougher, hahaha.

Lin Dan even went over to Hyun Il's side and asked him whether he saw that was  clearly an out, instead of saying "yes" or "no," Hyun Il said, "it is up to the linesman," which piss Lin Dan more.


At one part, Lin Dan even wanted to use his racquet to hit Li Mao and his assistant, but was stopped by the tournament referee, the umpire gave Lin Dan a yellow card and the game resume. Lin Dan managed to save match point at 21-21, but in the end, his smashed did not cross the net and gave the Korea Open MS champion to Hyun Il. After that, he slammed his racquet on the ground and that poor racquet was break into half with no handle.

To me, i think Lin Dan did put up a great fight after receiving a yellow card and involved in that ugly scene before that, he finished the game which i think it was good instead of walking away and not to play. He even received his runners up medal which i did not expect, hahaha.

It was a great comeback for Hyun Il and Zhou Mi, both were the no. 1 seed before, and i guess this title will boost their confidence to have a fight in the money with China (Lin Dan, Xie XingFang) and Malaysia (Chong Wei and Mew Choo).

The Men's doubles was won by China's Fu HaiFeng and Cai Yun, while the women's doubles was also won by China Du Jing - Yu Yang.