ASIAN CHAMPS 2011 – Shin’s knee keeps Lee at home

A nagging knee injury to Asian Games gold medallist Shin Baek Cheol was responsible for he and Lee Yong Dae not making the trip to China this week.  The two doubles stars had intended to test out their partnership at the Badminton Asia Championships in Chengdu.

“We had been monitoring Shin Baek Cheol’s recovery from his knee injury,” said Korean Head Coach Sung Han Kook to Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, “but when his condition was still not 100%, it was no longer worth having Lee go to China when he wasn’t going to get the chance to play doubles with Shin.”

Instead, Sung told Yonhap that Lee would be taking it easy for the next month, during the absence of his regular partner Jung Jae Sung, who is to be wed on May 1st.

Lee, who was again sporting elbow tape last week in a domestic event in Pocheon, will still be keeping up with training concentrating on maintaining his power and defensive play.  Lee Yong Dae has also found the time, however, to keep up with extra-curricular activities, making an appearance on a television show called “We Got Married” in a mock marriage to a k-pop singer.

The two men’s withdrawals actually hit the mixed doubles draw hardest with two pairs thus missing from the first round.  However, their respective partners, Ha Jung Eun and Kim Min Jung, have benefited from the ability to concentrate on their women’s doubles partnership, offing Du Jing and Pan Pan in the first round, for the first career victory for their partnership over a top Chinese pair.