TAIPEI: China’s legendary Lin Dan (pictured) saw off Vietnam’s Tuan Duc Do in just 24 minutes yesterday as he flew to his first victory since successfully defending his Olympic title in London last year.
‘Super Dan’, an icon in China and rated by many as badminton’s greatest player, made light of his eight-month break as he breezed through 21-12, 21-6 to reach the second round of the Badminton Asia Championships in Taipei.
The 29-year-old has won every major title going but he has been off the scene since the Olympic final last August, apart from his marriage to fellow badminton athlete Xie Xingfang and an exhibition match in December.
Do, the world number 422, put up a fight early on but the match was over as a contest when Lin reeled off 10 points in a row at the start of game two, followed by another six-point burst.
Lin, whose ranking has dropped to 40 during his long absence, will face a greater test today when he comes up against third seed Hu Yun of Hong Kong, a semi-finalist at last month’s Swiss Open.
Chinese top seed Chen Long beat Hong Kong’s Ng Ka Long, while women’s Olympic champion Li Xuerui went through against fellow Chinese Yu Sun, a qualifier.
With some of their top Asian rivals skipping the event, China have a strong chance of replicating their achievement at the Olympics by winning all five titles on offer.
Meanwhile, badminton is set to follow tennis and football by introducing technology to review disputed line-calls, officials said Wednesday, in an attempt to ease one of the sport’s major flash-points.
A test set-up will be used at next month’s Sudirman Cup in Malaysia before the new system goes live at the Indonesian Open in September, the Badminton World Federation (BWF) said in a statement.
“What we are doing is similar to other sports -- the rules and principles are essentially the same as sports such as tennis, though the technology and process may differ slightly,” said BWF deputy president Paisan Rangsikitpho.
“At the end of the day we want to further enhance the integrity of match play and the decisions which are made.”
However, the new system remains very much in the planning stages with the BWF still undecided on which of the various available technologies to use, just a month from the start of the Sudirman Cup.
“This decision is more about the rules than (about) the exact technology,” Rangsikitpho said.
“We are still considering various options but it will be a camera-based system which makes it possible for a line-call referee to reassess the call with slow-motion technology.
“We want to get the mechanics of this operation working properly and ensure that both players and match officials understand how it should be done, step by step. That’s our priority right now.”
Britain’s Hawk-Eye system has become part of the landscape in top-level tennis, and is also well established in international cricket, although India, which wields great financial clout, remains suspicious.
This month England’s Premier League sanctioned the use of Hawk-Eye from next season, a first for a domestic football league, while world body FIFA chose Germany’s GoalControl system to police this year’s Confederations Cup.
Line-calls are a perennial bone of contention in badminton, with players often complaining about officials making erroneous or biased decisions.
In one notorious incident at the 2002 Asian Games in South Korea, Indonesian star Taufik Hidayat stormed off the court after protesting that judges were favouring home hope Shon Seung-Mo, causing a long delay.Agencies
