Indonesia's Susi Susanti aims for All-England title
Indonesia's Susi Susanti aims for All-England title
BIRMINGHAM, England (AFP): Susi Susanti, the world's most successful professional badminton player, hopes to win the All- England trophy to supplement the wedding ring she acquired last month.
After her long-awaited marriage to fellow Indonesian former Olympic champion Alan Budikusuma she will be looking to get her hands on the women's singles trophy once more when the world's oldest tournament gets underway today.
The All-England, to end on March 15, is likely to be the penultimate lap in the marathon of Susi's unrivaled decade-long career, which she may well finish with a flourish by regaining four of the major titles she has lost.
She has already regained the World Cup and the World Grand Prix titles in the last three months. If Susi wins back the All- England as well she may retire after her attempt to regain the women's singles title at the World Championships in Glasgow in two months time.
Current form and attitude suggests a triumphant finish may be imminent, though the great lady remains cagey about whether this All-England will be her last.
But Susi's assessment after tearfully losing her title at the Atlanta Olympics was that "I'll play one more year" and nothing she has said since has indicated otherwise.
The woman who took the gold from her on that occasion, the South Korean Bang Soo-hyun, has already retired so will not be defending the All-England title she captured by beating both Susanti and Ye Zhaoying, the World Champion from China, last year.
This means that, although Susi has been seeded only fifth, she must surely be an unofficial favorite to capture her fifth All- England, and that Ye Zhaoying, seeded three, should be her most dangerous rival.
Susi is in the same quarter as the new young Chinese star, Gong Zhichao, who earned the number two seeding after her achievements in reaching the finals of the Japan Open and the Korean Open in January.
Ye Zhaoying is in the same half as Mia Audina, the local teenager who won the Olympic silver medal and who became number one for the first time after capturing the title in Japan.
Written off
Another famous former titleholder from Indonesia, Heryanto Arbi, will be fighting for the men's singles title, though he is not the favorite.
And it will be a crucial All-England for the ninth seed Heryanto and for the third seeded former world champion Joko Suprianto, who has been written off more times than any other leading player but has always answered his detractors.
Both are recovering from injury. Heryanto, who has his world title to defend in Glasgow in two months, has had his appearances limited by a calf and back injury.
Joko collapsed during the World Grand Prix finals in Bali in December and this is his first tournament since recovering from a torn hamstring.
If he is fit the portents are good. Joko is in the same half as top-seeded Olympic champion Poul-Erik Hoyer, who has not won an open tournament in the seven months since his Atlanta triumph.
"That was an occasion of great joy and happiness, but it took me a long time to get over it," Hoyer admits. "It was time I should have spent training and practicing, but didn't.
"I'd hoped the Indian Open might have been the tournament in which I got back my motivation, but it wasn't. But training has been going well this month and I may be almost 100 percent for the All-England and will be by the time of the World Championships."
If he does suddenly regain his form the unpredictably brilliant Hoyer can challenge seriously for his third successive All-England title, even though the odds are probably against it.
Other threats to Hoyer's title may come from the second-seeded Olympic bronze medalist from Malaysia, Rashid Sidek, if he can survive a probable meeting with Arbi in the third round, and from China's fourth-seeded Sun Jun, who beat Hoyer to win the Dutch Open.
Doubles
Indonesia is favorite for two other titles, the men's and mixed doubles, and could be in contention in all five finals.
The new men's partnership of Sigit and Chandra Wijaya, apparently being groomed for gold in the Sydney Olympics, are the top seeds, though the more likely winners appear to be their more famous compatriots, the titleholders and Olympic champions Ricky Subagja and Rexy Mainaky.
The well-established unorthodoxies of Trikus Heryanto and Minarti Timur, who sometimes defy the coaching manuals by playing comfortably with the woman at the back instead of the net -- are the mixed top seeds and have three Danish pairs as their nearest challengers.
But the hottest mixed favorites are not Indonesian. They are the top-seeded titleholders from China, Ge Fei and Gu Jun, who appear to have moved even further ahead of the field since winning at the Olympics last August.