BWF says Lee must wait for Line Judging Technology

“The consistency of this (poor line judging) taking place on the world stage has made me a little uneasy. But I am glad that I managed to win my fifth Open title,” Chong Wei told The Star following his win at the Malaysia Grand Prix Gold event in Johor Bahru.

“I can accept it if they were close calls but they were way out of the line. I did not make a big issue because I was playing against a fellow Malaysian. In Indonesia (against Taufik Hidayat in the final), I had to bear with it because I was playing at their home ground.”

The BWF’s response came from Deputy President  Paisan Rangsikitpho, who told the paper: “We are looking at all options to improve the quality of line judging.  Since badminton is quite different from tennis, Hawk-Eye technology (used in tennis) will cost quite a bit to do…For now until London 2012, it will be status quo.”

Low-tech changes to that status quo have already taken place for certain events, however.  While Paisan told The Star that the BWF would improve training for human line judges, one effort the body has already made has been to recruit international line judges for events such as the Olympics, World Championships and the Thomas, Uber, and Sudirman Cups to try to minimize the effect of national biases on championship match outcomes.  However, the Open tournaments and the general inconsistency of human error have yet to be tackled.

Read the complete Star articles here:
Chong Wei urges BWF to step in after surviving two bad calls
Line call technology: Not until after 2012 Olympics