WORLDS Day 1 – Danes near perfect

The home team dropped only a single match out of nine on the opening day of the Li-Ning BWF World Badminton Championships in Copenhagen on Monday.  Among the biggest wins was Conrad-Peterson and Pieler Kolding reversing the result of the European Championship final to beat Russia’s Ivanov/Sozonov.

By Don Hearn.  Photos: Badmintonphoto (live)

It was a repeat battle of the giants.  Four of the biggest men at the tournament took to the court to replay their battle from the European Championship in April.  But while Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov had home court advantage on that occasion, it was Mads Conrad-Petersen and Mads Pieler Kolding (pictured above) who held home turf this time and they made the most of it, winning both games by 21-18 and advancing to face the 11th seeds Pratama/Saputra in the second round.

For Ivanov, it was the second loss of the day as he had already gone down in the men’s singles to another big man, Czech Republic’s Petr Koukal (pictured below).

Denmark had a near perfect day.  Only Kim Astrup Sorensen and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen were shown the door.  The pair had a match point in the second game but couldn’t finish it off and allowed Chen Hung Ling and Lu Chia Pin (pictured above) of Chinese Taipei to begin the World Championships with an upset for the second year in a row.  Chen and Lu now advance to the second round to face Hong Wei – whom they beat in their opening match in 2013 – playing this year with Chai Biao.

For both Korea and China, almost every player they sent was seeded but both of Korea’s unseeded entries were beaten on Monday, as was one of China’s.  Kang Jung and Liu Cheng went down to Japan’s Takeshi Kamura and Keigo Sonoda (pictured below).  China’s other unseeded pair, 2013 World Junior Champions Li Junhui / Liu Yuchen, begin their first World Championship outing on Tuesday evening.

The recently crowned Commonwealth Games gold medallists had contrasting success on Day 1 of the Worlds.  Glasgow 2014 women’s singles winner Michelle Li (pictured above) of Canada edged England’s Fontaine Chapman 28-26, 21-17.  Li was the only player from the Pan Am region to make it through the first day, though several others will play their first matches on Tuesday.

While Malaysia’s women’s doubles gold medallists Hoo/Woon made quick work of their first round opponents, the men’s singles champion from Glasgow, Kashyap Parupalli (pictured below), was involved in the longest match of the day but it was Dieter Domke of Germany who finished on top 26-24, 13-21, 21-18 at the end of the 67 minutes.