Indonesia faces tough challenge in Lausanne
Indonesia faces tough challenge in Lausanne
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AFP): Indonesia's world championship dominance comes under threat from Europe's finest at this year's event beginning here today.
Denmark's Poul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen and Sweden's China-born Lim Xiaoqing won the All-England championships men's and women's singles respectively in March's litmus test for the world showpiece.
The 29-year-old Hoyer-Larsen beat world number one Hariyanto Arbi of Indonesia in the men's final.
Hariyanto was seeking the first men's singles hat-trick of titles since his great compatriot Rudi Hartono's run of seven successive wins ended in 1974.
However, Hoyer-Larsen may have to beat three top Indonesians before he could take the title.
Indonesia's five players are seeded in the top eight--world number one Hariyanto, Olympic champion Allan Budi Kusuma, 1991 All England winner Ardy B Wiranata, defending world champion Joko Suprianto and world number five Hermawan Susanto.
Since Flemming Delfs and Lene Koppen won the inaugural men's and women's singles for Denmark in 1977, neither title has been won by a European.
But in the women's event world number three Lim has good reason to believe she could be destined to win the 1995 title for Sweden.
Her All-England win in March, beating world and Olympic champion Susi Susanti in the semis and Denmark's world number four Camilla Martin in the final, has raised her hopes.
Lim, was also the first player of Asian origin to win a European singles title. She beat Sweden's Catrine Bengtsson in the final in Den Bosch, Holland in April last year.
But should Lim go on to take the title, she may have to thank her dentist.
Her improvement during the autumn and winter was unexpectedly due to having treatment carried out on her teeth.
She had been feeling weary and tests revealed too much mercury had been stored in her body. The mercury was traced to old dental fillings and Lim decided to have the amalgam taken out.
Since then she has shot up the world list to her current number three spot.
Susi
Defending champion Susi Susanti will be out to reassert her dominance of the sport after failing in both the All-England championships and Asian Games this season.
Olympic champion Susanti dominated world badminton during the early 1990s, but this season, her virtually unbeatable reputation has been tainted.
In the Asian event in Hiroshima in October, she fell to Japan's world number 12 Hisako Mizui to prove her defensive armour can be breached.
Mizui lost the final to Olympic silver-medalist Bang So Hyun, a 22-year-old freckle-faced Korean who wears a teeth brace and said she was lucky the Japanese girl took care of Susi.
Bang then issued a challenge to the Indonesian badminton queen.
"In the future I will beat her without fail," said Bang.
In the men's doubles, Indonesia's Ricky Subagja aims to retain his title, but is with a different partner since his 1993 win with compatriot Gunawan.
Subagja, who has since teamed up with Indonesian Rexy Mainaky and won the All-England title, is top seeded for a repeat triumph.
But Gunawan is also looking for a repeat win as 3/4 seed with fellow Indonesian Bambang Suprianto.
In the ladies doubles, top seeds Ge Fei and Gu Jun of China are set to meet South Korea's Kim Mee-hyang and Kim Shin-young in the final.
But a good outside bet would be Korea's 5/8 seeds Gil Young-Ah and Jang Hye-ock, who won the All-England title two months ago.
Europe's sole top seeds are in the mixed doubles where All- England champions Thomas Lund and Marlene Thomsen of Denmark are set to meet Indonesia's second seeds Heryanto Trikus and Minarti Timur in the final.
Lund has already had a taste of world championship success following his 1993 win with Sweden's Catrine Bengtsson.
The championships, held at the Malley Sports Center, begin today with the 50-nation Sudirman Cup -- the men/women combined world team championship.
But only countries from group one -- split into group 1A of South Korea, China, and England, and group 1B of Indonesia, Denmark, and Thailand, will have the chance to win the title this year.
The first matches from group one today are China v England and Denmark v Thailand.