Danish Open Analysis

Finally over my Olympic disappointment. Happy to say that The Badminton Blog will now continue its coverage of all tournaments around the world!

Okay, maybe not all around the world.

Anyway, the Danish Open is upon us! Oh my. I remember blogging about the Danish Open last year. Who could forget the excitement of the Malaysian number 1 WD pair Wong Pei Tty and Chin Eei Hui defeat the World Number 1s? Oh wait. That was the Frech Open. My bad.

This year's Danish Open will be less exciting, due to the fact that we don't have an Olympic Games and Thomas Cup in the horizon. Nevertheless, it'll be interesting to watch for a few reasons. Can Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong continue their run from Macau? Can they prove that they are once again, a force to be reckoned with? They certainly have caused the Malaysians lots of grief, many blaming them for Malaysia's 3-2 defeat to China in the Thomas Cup and their underperformance in the Olympic Games. (Me, I blame them for losing my PAWs in both the Thomas Cup and the Olympics :-) )

What about the split super pairing of Fu Haifeng and Cai Yun? I'll certainly look back at that pairing with a bit of nostalgia. Now they both appear to have taken over as the senior player in their respective pairings, Fu being paired with Shen Ye and Cai being paired with Chen Xu. Fu Haifeng must be crying no fair how Cai and Shen Ye have been seeded 6th while his pair remains unseeded. Nevertheless, both pairs are to be treated with the utmost caution.

On the other hand, is the era of the Sony here? No, not the Japanese brand. The player, Sony Dwi Kuncoro. He defeated Chong Wei enroute to winning the Japan Open title, while defeating Chen Jin in the China Open finals. Two back to back Super series victories. No mean feat!

Then we have the Chinese women singles players. Can they regain their strength and dominance after the departure of Zhang Ning and Xie Xingfang? It now falls onto the shoulders of Lu Lan, Zhu Lin, Wang Yihan and Wang Lin. On the other hand, we have Maria Kristin Yulianti who appears to be emerging as the new Susi.

In the men single's department, we have the two Danish homecrowd favorites Peter Gade and Kenneth Jonassen, who are both by no means young. It appears that both the world number 1 and number 2, Chong Wei and Lin Dan have opted out of this tournament. We also have super veteran Wong Choong Hann, now outside the BAM, playing. Can he overcome the dissapointment of losing to the unheralded Hsieh Yu Hsin of Taiwan in Beijing?

This Denmark Open will certainly be an interesting barometer to gauge the landscape of the future badminton scene!