WORLDS 2013 Day 2 – Kim and Jung upset 5th seeds

Mixed doubles 5^th seeds Chan/Goh became the biggest casualty of the Wang Lao Ji BWF World Badminton Championships so far when they lost to Korea’s Kim Ki Jung and Jung Kyung Eun.

By Don Hearn, Badzine Correspondent live in Guangzhou.  Photos: Badmintonphoto (live)

Today was not a good day to be a mixed doubles seed at the Wang Lao Ji BWF World Badminton Championships.  7 of the 16 seeds fell and five of these fell to formerly higher ranked pairs who were reunited just for this tournament.  But none fell harder than Japan Open champions Chan Peng Soon / Goh Liu Ying (pictured below), who lost in straight games to Kim Ki Jung and Jung Kyung Eun (pictured left).

Seeding foiled by ranking?

When the World Championship qualifying period ended at the end of April this year, several pairs had qualified mainly on the basis of points from last year, even some who had not played since the fall or even since the Olympics.  Several teams decided it was better to enter the reunited pairs rather than send smaller contingents with only current partnerships.

Five of these pairs were responsible for the thrashing of mixed doubles seeds on Day 2.  Korea’s Kim Ki Jung and Jung Kyung Eun were reunited in January after nearly a year apart, but stopped playing mixed when Kim Ki Jung got injured shortly after the Swiss Open.  Still, the Koreans, whose all-time best is just #24 in the world, were bound to be a fly in the ointment regardless.

Kim and Jung led the first game from the opening moments and looked set to do the same in the second until the Malaysians closed the gap with a 4-point run, only to let it slip away in the end.

“We didn’t go into this thinking ‘We’ve got to win’,” explained Jung Kyung Eun, “and we didn’t really approach it with a particular strategy.

“More than that, Just coming onto the court,we were able to just free our minds and play comfortably.  We were able to keep our concentration steady and the game just clicked for us.”

“In our training, we’ve both been focussed more on men’s and women’s doubles but we do have lots of experience together so we relied on that,” added Kim Ki Jung.  “We were able to play very comfortably and no matter who we play, we’re going to go at it to win and today we did.

“This is the World Championships after all and we wanted to play to a standard of such a big tournament so of course we played our hardest.”

In with the old, in with the new, for Chen Hung Ling

The first in the mixed doubles pattern was the win by Chinese Taipei’s Chen Hung Ling / Cheng Wen Hsing (pictured below) over Adcock/White of England.  However, unlike for some of the others, this arrangement, putting the erstwhile partners – who had only played that one match at the Sudirman Cup since the London Olympics – back together may well just be temporary.

“We now are with different companies,” said Cheng Wen Hsing.  “I don’t know how it works in other places but in Chinese Taipei, it makes it very difficult.

“As for how we feel on court together, as long as he doesn’t attack me, I think we’re doing okay,” joked Cheng.

The reunion pattern didn’t work out in the most exciting first round men’s doubles match.  Chinese fans were dismayed to see former world #4 Hong Wei and Shen Ye go down to Chen Hung Ling and Lu Chia Pin.  It took the Taiwan pair just two games but both pairs packed those with stellar defense, thundering smashes, and furious, flat, fast driving exchanges.

Click here for complete Day 2 results