My visit to the Copenhagen Masters, 2nd day

Below is my report on my visit this year to the Copenhagen Masters. It's all very subjective of course, so don't flame me if you've seen the matches on TV and disagree with my opinions! Apart from factual faults about scoring and such (as this is recalled from memory), this is how I experienced it. (Note that by the time you read this, the finals are probably finished!)

AFTERNOON MATCHES, TUESDAY 28/12

I arrived early at the Falconer Center in order to meet up with Raphael Sachetat and Jonas Rasmussen. The Falconer Centre is actually a big conference centre housed in the SAS Radisson Hotel in Copenhagen. As I approached it passed Lars Paaske in the street, and when I walked by the Seven-Eleven on the corner I spotted Taufik and his girlfriend inside. In the foyer of the Centre, Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms were hanging around. I found Jonas, but unfortunately for me, he was busy signing autographs for a long line of kids. There was no time for anything more than a quick hello. Instead I had a good chat with Raphael and some others (a collegue of Raphael who also manages Peter Gade's new site, a photographer and I think Leif Andersen of DilleSport.dk) about the future of badminton. /.../

After this discussion, I entered the arena (or conference hall rather, with the layout of a large movie theatre with room for perhaps 5-600 spectators). I found my friends that had travelled down 750 km from Stockholm to see the whole tournament, bought a beer (this is Denmark after all and I was on vacation), and sat down to watch Jens Eriksen, Martin Lundgaard, Sang Yang and Zheng Bo warm up on the only court.

ERIKSEN/LUNDGAARD vs SENG/ZHANG 15-10, 15-8

These pairs have beaten each other in their most recent encounters, so it looked pretty open. However, the Danes started out terribly. Jens Eriksen looked slow on court and produced a number of unprovoked faults, and Martin Lundgaard didn't seem to have quite his usual punch and angle in his smashes, while the Chinese played very well. It didn't take long before the Chinese held the lead with 9-1. At this point, the Danes seemed to wake up a bit and started playing better, but it was just too late and Seng/Zhang took first set 15-10. Second set waas more even from the start, and the Danes often gained the offense quickly in the rallies, but were unable to penetrate the solid Chinese defense. Once the Chinese got the attack they often only needed one or two smashes to nail the shuttle to the floor. Especially Zheng Bo was impressive, firing off fierce jumpsmashes with great success. The Chinese won second set 15-8.

ENG/FLANDI vs ONG/TAN 15-13, 16-17, 15-10
Merited and experienced Indonesians against inexperienced and unknown junior Malaysians. I believe is their first contest outside Asia. Few doubted that it would be an easy win for Eng/Flandi -- especially after having seen Ong/Tan on TV the night before getting beaten by JR/Lars.

The young Malaysians took off at high pace, playing very fast and energetic with sharp attacks. In total contrast, Eng and Flandi looked laid-back bordering on careless. But as the true badminton aficionado knows, that it just their normal style... The Malaysians took an early lead, but soon Flandi/Eng caught up and from there on they were never many points apart. As usual with this Indonesian pair, Flandi was doing most of the heavy grinding, while Eng Hian showed glimpses of a true badminton genious. In my opinion, he is one of the most creative players around today. He just instinctively seems to know where to place the shuttle to cause havoc for his opponents. Sometimes, though, he gets a bit over-creative, and on those occasions Ong/Tan were fast enough to exploit that. In my opinion, Eng/Flandi were a bit lucky to bring the first set home 15-13. Second looked pretty much the same, but Eng/Flandi got a 8-3 lead, relaxed a bit, and saw the lead turn into a 8-11 deficit instead. Now the Malaysian pair had the initiative, but Eng/Flandi again showed their experience and fought their way back into the lead, in fact to a match point. And once again they lost the lead, and the Malaysians played very well to win the second set 17-16.
In the decider Eng/Hian felt pretty much in control, but Ong/Tan fought vigilantly and we were given several long and hard-fought rallies, producing many "oohs" and "aahs" from the audience. In the end Eng/Flandi won by 15-10. The best match of the day, no doubt.

And something must be said about the stringing service during this tournament. There must have been something wrong with it. During this match, these two pairs were breaking strings like nothing I've ever seen before. They must have broken 20 racquets together. Tan used up all his racquets, and had to borrow racquets from his partner. And this string-breaking frenzy continued in the other matches too! Xia, Taufik (I think he broke three strings against Gade!), Paaske, Zheng/Sang broke numerous, and so on. And Eng Hian continued to break strings against JR/Lars, so many that he had to get new racquets delivered to the court side while the match was in progress! After a while, players were just laughing about it, it was ridiculous. There must have been a problem with the official stringing service at the tournament.

MOGENSEN/OLSEN vs ROBERTSON/EMMS 15-9, 15-4
I have seen a few MD matches with Carsten Mogensen, and it didn't take much watching to realize that this guy has a bright future. Without the shadow of a doubt, this is the next star of Danish doubles. His mixed doubles partnership with Rikke Olsen is still rather new, and while they have taken a few big scalps, they haven't won any major titles yet. I have seen a lot of matches with Rikke Olsen partnering Michael Søgaard and Jonas Rasmussen, but I have never seen her with Carsten before. And now they were facing the world #1 pair and Olympic silver medallists Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms... I was not hoping for more than a good fight from the Danes -- in fact I was pretty sure that the Britons would win.

The beginning of the match was rather shaky. A lot of unprovoked mistakes and strange blunders. Rikke got faulted for illegal serves a few times. She really has to work that out, it's getting ridicilous with all those faults. Carsten's attacks weren't as sharp as in those MD matches I had seen before. Nathan and Gail weren't exactly producing any wonders either, so it was pretty even for the first half of the first set. After that, the Danes found their rhythm. Rikke was suddenly sharp on the net and on the defense, and Carsten's smashes were now very hard and accurate. The Danes won the first set convincingly by 15-9.

It was obvious that the Britons where frustrated. Quite early in the second set Nathan got faulted for serving with racquet head too high, which was something he just wouldn't accept. The protested wildly, and said some pretty nasty thingbs to the service judge. He was lucky that the umpire didn't hear, because those words would have given him a yellow -- if not red -- card. It was all rather embarrasing, and a bit sad, really. But Nathan just wouldn't let it go. He played the next few points (which they lost of course) like he didn't care one bit what happened in the match, and in every break he mumbled under his breath and tried to stare out the service judge. Near the end of the second set, Nathan snapped out of it enough to actually display some inspired playing, but by then it seemed that Gail had given up the fight. The Danes kept the pace up and won easily by 15-4.?

JONASSEN vs XIA 15-6, 15-5
Xia Xuanze is a long-time favourite of mine, and this was the first time I would see him live. And I'm quite a fan of Kenneth Jonassen too, although perhaps more for his never-say-die attitude than for his playing, so needless to say I was looking forward to this match. However, I am a little disappointed as to how it turned out, as Kenneth was able to pretty much control Xia during the whole of the match, making it rather one-sided. Xia offered only glimpses of his greatness, and must have been tired or something from his long journey. On the other hand, Kenneth did play a rock solid game, and the encounter ended 15-6, 15-5. I was certainly hoping for more from Xia. As you most of you have probably seen, Kenneth was donning an armless shirt in this tournament. In my opinion, he looks like an idiot, and apparently many Danes agree, as he's been mocked by the Danish press, dubbing him the "Bruce Springsteen of Badminton". Or maybe he chooses to take that as a compliment -- what do I know?

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EVENING MATCHES:

GADE vs TAUFIK 15-8, 15-6
Although he had been beaten quite badly by WCH the evening before, Taufik is never to be taken lightly, and it was clear from the start that Peter Gade wasn't going to. Gade put Taufik under a lot of pressure right away, and quite quickly gained a comfortable lead. Taufik looked a bit stunned by Gade's high jump smashes and sharp net play, but slowly picked up his game which lead to a some great rallies with inspired trick shots from both sides. It didn't help, though, as Gade played an almost faultless game with thundering cross-court jump smashes and deceptive drops, while Taufik often had trouble finding the lines, especially hitting out over the baseline quite a lot. Most importantly, Gade won the net, which is something of a key to playing Taufik successfully. Without taking anyway from Gade, it should be said that Taufik just wasn't up to his full standard in this match. On the other hand, it's only in the Big Matches that Taufik seems able to bring out his best play, and this being a small invitational tournament probably couldn't motivate him enough.

SANG/ZHENG vs ARCHER/BLAIR 17-15, 15-13
Archer/Blair got crushed by Eriksen/Lundgaard the night before, and a few hours ago Sang/Zheng beat the Danes, so I thought this would be little more than a formality. And once the match started, it looked as if I was right. Zheng was pounding smash after smash into the wooden floor. Archer and Blair looked like they didn't have any game plan at all. They just didn't have any answer to the Chinese attacks. At 10-3 for the Chinese in the first set, I went out to buy a beer, fearing that by the time I got back the match would be over. Well, I was wrong. When I got back the lead had been reduced to 10-9, and when I asked by friend what happened he dryly said: "Simon started playing". I have for quite some time regarded Simon Archer as hopelessly over the hill, but now he was displaying some very clever play. Well-disguised and hard attacks, and cool on the defense. He was now all over the place, and the usually grumpy Archer actually looked to be enjoying himself thoroughly, while it seemed that Blair made everything to keep out of his way. Simon single-handedly managed to shake the Chinese into setting the first game at 14-14. With a little more help from Blair, the Britons would have brought the first set home, but eventually the Chinese took it home 17-15.

Blair played with much more confidence in the second set, which took some pressure off Archer while maintaining the pressure on the Chinese. But the Chinese also pulled up the pace, resulting in a lot of great rallies. Although Archer/Blair were very close to getting 14-14, in the end logic prevailed and Sang/Zheng won the second set by 15-13, thus securing a place in the final.

What on the paper looked to be a rather dull match turned out to be one of the most entertaining of the day!

FLANDI/ENG vs RASMUSSEN/PAASKE 15-12, 15-13
Flandi/Eng was to play their second match of the day against reigning World Champions Lars Paaske and Jonas Rasmussen, to settle who would meet Sang/Zheng in the final. Jonas was sporting a new hairstyle -- no hair at all -- and Paaske a new racquet, the Armortec 800 DF. Well, none of this helped. It was a close affair, but Eng/Hian were pretty much in control all the time, now playing at a higher level than against Ong/Tan earlier. I dare to say that it was Jonas that lost the match, rather than Eng/Hian winning it. He just wasn't up to par. Especially in the second set, he made so many mistakes that he seemed to completely lose his confidence. Fortunately, Paaske was producing some really inspired stuff, which kept the Danes in the match. Jonas pretty much resorted to doing "nothing shots", it looked as if he was hoping that Paaske would step in and take care of business. I've seen several matches where Jonas has "lost it" like this, and so far he hasn't been able to get out of that pit. This time, JR did pick himself up a bit late in the second set and almost got back to his usual daredevil self, but it was too late. Eng/Hian won 15-12, 15-13.

All in all, I really enjoyed this year's Masters. The new vennue is not as atmospheric as the old Cirkusbygningen, but it does the job. The big thing about the Copenhagen Masters wasn't the building, but the intimacy, and luckily that's still there. Players and coaches are walking about freely in the foyer, happily chatting to anybody. Security arrangements are invisible if they exist, and there is no barrier between audience and players. Some of them even chose to sit in the audience to watch the other matches. I had Rikke Olsen just in front of me, and Carsten Mogensen just beside me. A great way to experience the game.

A visit is strongly recommended if you're anywhere near Copenhagen in December next year!

 

Thank you. Unfortunately, there will be no report from the finals, as I was only able to visit this day...