TUC 2010 Day 1 – Cup favourites cruise through opening day

By EeLyn Ooi, reporting live from Stadium Putra in Bukit Jalil.  Photos: BadmintonPhoto (live)

It is ‘something new’ to open the 2010 TUC finals with a rare visitor in the big game.  The Australians are definitely enjoying their exposure on the courts of Thomas and Uber Cup finals for the third and fourth time respectively, as both their teams were the first to greet the Indonesians this time.

The Indonesian ladies had their strongest line-up against a not-so-experienced Australian side this afternoon, allowing the former to clinch the 5-0 victory to make a good start. 

Despite being rated the weakest first singles in the Thomas Cup, Taufik Hidayat (pictured left) had no sweat against 22-year-old Jeff Tho as he swept him off 21-12, 21-12 in less than half an hour. Soon, the Indonesians who chose to take back both their second singles and doubles to allow their backups to have a go then rang the bell of victory with 5-0 against a full-shot Australian team.

On court four, Japan’s leading women’s singles player, world #13 Eriko Hirose toppled the glass a little as she saw Juliane Schenk of Germany (ranked 11th) stealing the first point in straight games of 21-15, 21-12.  Fortunately, doubles pair of Mizuki Fujii / Reika Kakiiwa grasp the momentum and held off the German pair of Carla Nelte and Johanna Goliszewski.

In a mere 29-minute match, Ai Goto showed the Germans that they had not gained much of an advantage through Schenk’s victory. She took her match 21-15, 21-10, allowing Japan to take the lead for the first time.

The 2nd doubles match was a nail-biting one as Germany’s Birgit Overzier and Juliane Schenk (pictured right), who had won a point in the 1st singles earlier, had a chance to earn a 2-2 tie. After throwing the 1st game 21-17, the Germans caught up taking the 2nd 21-18, only to lose it back into the hands of the eager Japanese Satoko Suetsuna / Miyuki Maeda.

Last up was world #36 Yu Hirayama against youngster Fabienne Deprez, who were the last people on the ground as the games on three of the other courts have ended by then. 

China, who sent Chen Long instead of Bao Chunlai to play 3rd singles and Chai Biao / Zhang Nan (pictured left) in place of Cai Yun/ Fu Haifeng, had a smooth 5-0 win over Peru, who had players splitting themselves to play in both singles and doubles matches.

It was earlier reported that the Thomas and Uber Cups finals will be adopting a “special ranking system” to determine the order of the men’s doubles pairs for teams with pairs that do not meet the 8 tournaments in last 12 months criteria. China’s Thomas Cup team is one of the several teams affected.

Badzine is reporting ‘live’ at the 2010 Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Kuala Lumpur! Check back for our daily news updates and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

For complete results from Day 1 of the 2010 Thomas and Uber Cups, CLICK HERE