Korea down to one pair for All England

Korea will begin the All England with only a singles men’s doubles pair this year.  With their top two pairs shattered by this week’s announcement that the Badminton World Federation (BWF) was suspending both Lee Yong Dae and Kim Ki Jung, Korea will be fielding only Shin Baek Cheol and Ko Sung Hyun.

Ko is due to make a very quick comeback, as he just began basic training with the Korean military team on December 23rd.  Some of his predecessors in such a situation were absent from international competition for as much as five months.  Neither Yoo Yeon Seong nor Kim Sa Rang are playing in Europe this spring, despite the fact that the suspension of their respective partners (see here) was announced before the registration deadline for both the All England and the German Open.

More news comes in the mixed doubles, where Chan Peng Soon is entered with Lai Pei Jing, in place of the injured Goh Liu Ying.  Chen Hung Ling is back with Cheng Wen Hsing and Scottish Open champions Robert Blair / Imogen Bankier are among those returning to the Superseries for the first time since last autumn’s French Open.

Lee and Yoo are also both out of the mixed in Birmingham but Kim Ha Na is back in rotation and will again be playing with Ko Sung Hyun, with whom she won the Asian Championships.  Kim will also be reunited with Jung Kyung Eun in women’s doubles and Lee So Hee is back from knee surgery to resume her partnership with Shin Seung Chan.

As announced earlier this month by the Badminton Association of Malaysia, this will be the first time since they won the event in 2007 that Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong will not appear at the All England.  Two-time champion Fu Haifeng might also miss out if he and Zhang Nan do not make it off the reserve list, where they are presently the 4th pair.

Most of the new pairings will get a dry run the previous week at the German Open.  This event will, however, be lacking home favourite Juliane Schenk.  Schenk recently posted to her personal website that she was endeavouring to remove herself from the world’s top ten, as this status is proving very costly to her so long as the BWF makes attendance at Superseries events compulsory.  She is entered in the All England – to miss which would cost her a US$5,000 fine – but skipping the German Open will shave off nearly 6000 points and should knock her out of the top ten.

You can use the following links to download the entry lists for the All England and the German Open from the BWF website.