Denmark enters Thomas Cup in full team 'to fight' Indonesia

JAKARTA (JP): Denmark, Europe's strongest badminton country, arrived here yesterday with promises of a daunting challenge for the hosts in the race for Thomas Cup.

With doubles specialist Thomas Lund managing to recover from his knee injury, Denmark looks confident to steal the limelight in the May 10-21 finals. The Thomas Cup second seed's hopes in the singles will rest on world number four singles Poul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen and his seventh ranked teammate Thomas Stuer Lauridsen.

Coach Morten Frost Hansen told waiting reporters shortly after landing at Soekarno-Hatta Iternational Arport yesterday that Denmark's minimal is advance to the semifinals.

"We will beat South Korea en route to clinching the semifinal slot," Frost, three-time All England winner and formerly a Thomas Cup competitor, said.

"We also take the advantage of getting used to the climate here earlier," said Frost, adding that his players will not be troubled with Jakarta's tropical climate since they have played here many times.

Denmark is grouped with defending champion Malaysia, dark- horse South Korea and Thailand. The Danes are pitted against Thailand in their opening matches on May 11.

Denmark will likely stick to Stuer-Lauridsen at first singles, despite the latest rankings issued by the International Badminton Federation (IBF) which placed him behind Hoyer-Larsen.

"The rankings figure on the players' performances 18 months ago," said Frost who believes Stuer-Lauridsen is still Denmark's number one. He admitted, however, both players are very close in quality.

Lund, who topped the 1993 world badminton grand prix rankings with Jon Holst-Christiansen, will make his first appearance after a three-month layoff. "I'm improving now, even though I won't be a hundred percent fit for next week's finals," Lund, who had only three-week's preparation for the biennial event, said.

The Danish contingent also included Denmark's Uber Cup team, who also possess world beating shuttlers. The Chinese and Japanese squads arrived an hour later. The organizers have billeted all the participants and officials at the Jakarta Hilton International hotel.

Changing schedule

The organizing committee have announced that the daily program will start an hour earlier than the previous schedule to help journalists. The organizers, however, will let matches involving the host's teams begin at 7.30 p.m. as scheduled.

"Both IBF and honorary referees have approved of the changes," chairman of the committee Titus Kurniadi said. He also indicated that Indonesian teams might reschedule their matches if neccesary. "We are thinking about this," he said.

Many local and foreign journalists had earlier complained that the late evening games would hamper them from making their deadlines.

All the visiting teams will start their training sessions here at Senayan badminton hall at Jl. Asia Afrika today. The Indonesian teams receive the privilege to use the Senayan indoor stadium, the venue for the finals. (amd)