Who was the greatest badminton player of all time?

[Steved]

I know who it was, do you?

[Kelvin]

What criteria is needed to be considered the greatest exactly?
Do you mean most championship wins?
I'd like to know who the greatest is. :p

[mcripp]

If you mean sinlges then I think that it is a toss-up between Morten Frost and Rudy Hartano. If you mean doubles then it must be Park Joo Bong.

[Geof]

Judy Hashman nee Devlin ?

[Jezza]

Ha! Eddy Choong. Won the all England Several times in a row at the grand height of 5'1"!

[maddy]

I do not know could you tell me

[nellie]

The greatest Badminton Player of all time was I think Dave Freeman can you guess who this is Steve

[Steved]

Freeman, David G.
As a teen-ager, Freeman won the national junior singles tennis championship, but he later decided to concentrate on badminton. He was known primarily as a retriever who returned everything in his early years in the sport, but he later developed a strong attacking game, as well.
Freeman dominated the sport in the U. S. for nearly fifteen years. He was U. S. champion from 1939 through 1942, and in 1947, 1948, and 1953. There was no national championships from 1943 through 1946, so he actually won six in a row. He also won the men's doubles title five times with three different partners, and he was the All-England singles champion in 1949.
His colorful style, darting and whirling around the court to return his opponent's shots, was described by one spectator as resembling a Comanche war dance.
But was he the greatest?
No, I cannot yet place you madeline

[Steved]

http://www.sportslex.com/dk/a/3/all_england.htm This link will give you the 'All England Singles Champions', both male and female since 1947.

[Steved]

Confered by the International Badminton Federation on members of the EBU national organisations
HALL OF FAME
The IBF Hall of Fame is to honour players and administrators who have enhanced their sport through exceptional achievements.
These are all listed on the IBF site, with their achivements and photo's.

[Steved]

Eddy Choong (Malaysia)
Introduced into the Hall of Fame in 1997
Born Penang, Malaysia 1930
Right Handed, Height 5ft 2in

Winner All England Championships: MS 1953, 1954, 1956 and 1957; MD with brother, David, 1951, 1952 and 1953

Winner of the following European MS Titles:
Ireland 1951 - 1953
Scotland 1951 and 1953
Denmark 1953
Dutch 1953 and 1954 and MD 1954
German 1954 and MD 1954 and 1955
Norwegian 1954 and MD 1954

USA Championships: MS 1954
Malayan Championships: MX Doubles 1949
Represented Malaysia in the 1955 Thomas Cup Team and captained Malaysia in 1958
From the IBF hall of fame. Has he done enough to be the greatest?

[lu]

If we are refering to singles players then it must be Morten Frost.

[Luncheon]

The Greatest Mens Doubles Pair of the modern era has got to be Candra and Tony G. They were unbelievable and could play every part of the game with amazing ability. With modern training and modern styles the greatest player must also be modern and these two are the very best of an excellant bunch!

[Trev]

I think Yang Yang and Ib Fredrickson were great players although they were more of 1 -2 year wonder. Any information on them? How many titles did they win?

[Steved]

Somone mentioned this lady.
Judy Hashman (USA/England)
Introduced into the Hall of Fame in 1997
Born 1936 Canada - daughter of Joseph Francis (Frank) Devlin
Righthanded

Represented USA 1956 - 1969 on 8 occasions (I am surprised it was only eight in thirteen years. I wonder if anyone knows the story behind that)
Represented England 1970 - 1972 on 8 occasions

Winner of: 31 US Open titles: - 12 LS, 12 LD and 7 MX
All England Championships: - 10 LS from 1954 - 1967; 6 LD with sister Sue (later Peard) from 1954 - 1966 and one LD in 1962 with Tonny Holst Christensen of Denmark.

Equalled Meriel Lucas's record of All England Titles but was one behind her father's eighteen tally. Also represented the US at Lacrosse in 1954
With her father and sister they must be the greatest Badminton family of all time? Or does anyone know any family more successful?

[vetsa]

I agree with Liz Uys that Morten Frost must surely be the greatest player of all time. I remember watching him at the All England Badders Champs when they were played in the late 70's down in London - I was really impressed that he seemed to be the best world player at the time amongst stiff competition from a wad of players from the Far East.

[Steved]

Morten Frost (Denmark)
Introduced into the Hall of Fame in 1998
Born Denmark 1958 - Righthanded
Represented Denmark on 78 occasions

Winner of the following:
Danish National Championships: MS 1977 - 1983, 1986, 1989, 1990; MD 1979 - 1981, 1983; MX 1983
Nordic Championships: MS 1978 - 1984, 1988; MD 1980 - 1982, 1986
European Championships: MS 1984, 1986
All England Championships: MS 1982, 1984, 1986, 1987; runner-up 1983, 1985, 1988, 1989 English Masters: MS 1984 - 1988
Scandinavian Masters: MS 1981, 1984, 1986
Canadian Open: MS 1979, 1980
Scottish Open: MS 1982 - 1984, 1988, 1989; MX 1983, 1984
German Open: MS 1982, 1986, 1988, 1989
Chinese Taipei Masters: MS 1984, 1987, 1989
Japan Open: MS 1984, 1990; Runner-up 1987
Swedish Open: MS 1989
Malaysian Masters: MS 1985
Finnish Open: MS 1984
Grand Prix Finals: MS 1984; r-up 1983
Dutch Open: MS 1983
Belgium Open: MS 1987,1988
Welsh Open: MS 1982
World Cup: MS r-up 1985, 1986
World Championships: MS r-up 1985, 1987
Yes, what a great player. Got to the final of the All England 8 times and won 4

[gm17]

Its may be MORTIN FROST or RUDI HARTANO in singles.

[DuchyOpenBadminton]

Hello, this is John Tresidder from Cornwall. I am Press Officer for the Duchy Open Tournament and currently logged on through Linda Collins' user name.

My favourite all-time great has got to be Liem Swie King from Indonesia, who I believe had the greatest power smash ever. Some smashes were executed several feet off the ground! A former World no. 1 and three times singles winner at the All-England Championships, I found him inspirational

Bye for now - see you at the next Duchy
Open.

John T. 01209 711325

[Martin Dew-Hattens]

You really want to know?

It wasn't me but - wait for it...

Cristian Hadinata of Indonesia.

Simply the most difficult player to play against. He would have won the all
England singles if he had been told not to loose the final to Rudi.

He won a load of other stuff otherwise.

Now he is the team manager and usually walks about in a dirty old raincoat.

Great player and nice guy!!

[LauraMarlow]

Eddy Choong for me really nice man, I've met him a couple of times such a sweetie. Have to admit though that I haven't met any of the others you are all discussing.

[viver]

My first post in this forum and hi to everybody. English is not my first language, so please forgive my grammar and spelling errors.

So many great players have been mentioned. My vote would go to Tong Xian Fu from China and currently the Chinese national team coach. Nicknamed as the 'Thing' probably for his strength. As a player in his prime, he was unbeaten (only player able to beat him was Hou Jia Chang another Chinese legend). Touring Europe with Chinese team in 60's and 70's, he beat famous players like Erland Kops and Svend Pri, most of the times in straight sets. His play characterized by strength, agility and speed, his skills - strokes and footwork were considered 'perfect'. Also an excellent doubles player, it was him who started to use the spinning serve in the 70's. Too bad during his prime he was not able to take part in official tournaments due to political reasons.

[whodaman]

Greatest players of all time.... Barry Francis, Lee Clapham and Tony Dennis! Absolute legends of English badminton

[trolleybus]

If anyone saw my piece in the thread on the '80s' you will see that I mentioned Gillian Gilks. Certainly she was the best woman player that England has ever had. But one thing she managed, that no other player in this country has managed, she became a household name, by winning sportswoman of the year. The result of that was to put Badminton on the sporting map. Unfortunatly the powers that be at the time could not take advantage of it!!

[Frodo]

Zhao Jian Hua seemed to be quite inpressive, as did Hoyer Larsen in the singles game.

[SylviaPenn]

I agree with Colin that Gillian Gilks was our best lady player of all time. How many players these days enter all three events in the All England Championships let alone win them all?!! Does anyone know if there are any videos around of All Englands back in the 70's? It would be interesting to compare play back then and now.

[trolleybus]

Sylvia, it is possible that videos may exist from the early 80's from the All England at Wembley I was privilaged to witness Gillian partnering Martin Dew, and winning the mixed event , it was televised by the BBC! WOW! Maybe the BAof E has it in the archives. Yes it would be interesting to compare standards of play then as compared with now at the highest level. Gillian certainly led the way, to win the U18 Nationals at 13! Now that's leading the way.

[ukplayer]

Colin & Sylvia,

An acquaitance of mine in Malaysia has been looking to obtain these videos. He has contacted the BAofE and they have confirmed that they still have some of these videos in their archive.

Can I suggest that you politely contact Gill Brill of BAofE to restore the 70's tapes which should include Gilks,Stevens, Talbot etc.

[SylviaPenn]

Thanks UK Player! Will follow up your suggestion to enquire about archive tapes at BAofE.

[Steved]

I thought I would resurrect this subject as Martin has given his opinion of a person I do not know. Who was the greatest?

[Michael Banks]

The tapes. Forgot about them completely. I take it they have been left to rot somewhere and they aren't good enough to be put into production.

If anyone knows of any advancement in this please let us all know.

[SteveD1st]

Your best players of all time?Try these

Greatest has got to be Judy Hashman/Devlin. Count the All England Titles.

[Stonecold]

i asked my grampa this at dinner the other day....hes coched for 40 years from primary school to national squads in scotland and has saw most of the players mentioned.....to go way back, he commented on Eddie Choong and Hartono for singles, was also a fan of Frost and Hoyer-Larsen. (he showed me the Hartono skip when i was 7)

For doubles....two players not mentioned. Finn Kobbero and Jorgen Haamergaard-Hansen. he saw them play exhibition badminton up here, breathtaking apparently. Hansen had as hard a backhand smash as some did forehands. anyone else wish to comment on these players?

Gilks appears to be front runner in ladies.

[dlp]

You have to say on what criteria you are judging it: advancement of the game, domination of contemporaries, entertainment, longevity, absolute standard. No.of titles is not an indication of greatness unless you look at the context of those wins.

For instance Camilla has won a world title and olympic silver, plus one AE. But that doesn't tell the story unless you realise that she singlehanded has taken on almost three generations of chinese players, without Camilla China would have won every major title in the last ten years.

It is a pattern in all sports that as the sport expands across more countries and technical knowledge is spread the competitiveness increases. It is hard to imagine any player dominating the world singles game for a number of years as happened in the past. Even at the AE chamionships almost any player in the mens field can take out the champion in a one off game, as Ghaffar showed this year, yet in the past the same players reached the finals year after year.

[biggy]

One thing I have realised on this threat is that greatness is measured on all england titles.That aint the only tournament on the circuit.Look at other tournaments and opens and see who won loads of them in a row or in a season.All the players mentioned are good but I personally think the best players are Zhao Jianhua and Yang Yang.

Zhao was the most deceptive player and probably still the most deceptive player, he had perfect footwork and revolutionarised the jump smash.

Yang Yang is the only person to defend a world title and also had good footwork and jumped well.No-one came close to him and he made a fool of Morten Frost quite a few times. Frost was good but was around,at the start of his career,when not many good movers were around. Zhao and Yang Yang ended the era of hartono and swie King and brought in the game that is smooth and that is used alot in todays game.

[Thorberg]

This is what is so nice about sport. We can in a friendly tone discuss topics like "Who was the greatest badminton player of all time?" No answer is the right answer - and a lot of nice names are on the list already. Guess it depends on, what makes a player "great"?

I have MY favorites. Off course you have to mention Eddie Choong and Morten Frost, but players like Hartono, Lim Swi King, Poul-Erik Hoyer (at least in the olympic tournament where his played badminton from an other planet!) or what about Erland Kops? 7 times winner of mens single in All England - 4 times in a row - and in addition 4 times winner of All England in mens double.

[rickys]

I agree with NobodyS on this.

I've met Eddie Choong and he also rates Zhao and Yang Yang - he's visited my club several times. However I can’t comment on him as I’ve never seen footage of him.

I must admit though, everyone seems to rate Morten Frost though and I think he was quite boring to watch, with the exception of when he played Zhao and instead of plodding around, he upped his game and started attacking Zhao.

Also, Hoyer might have had some good angles but I rate Peter Gade as one of the most exciting Danish players of all time and just to show you, they love him in the Far East.

[rogersmyth]

instead of saying who was the greatest of all time, how about the greastest of an era like the last ten years, kim dong moon has been one of the most dominant players, consistantly winning big titles and only has been beaten 6 times! good players can dominate for a year or 2 but is the acid test not wether they can do it for their enitre career? the hallmark of great players is big titles like worlds and olympics. has anyone else got as many as kim dong moon?

[dlp]

Kim Dong Moon won the Olympic mixed in 96 and won both the mens and mixed at the 99 worlds. He won the mixed last year at the worlds.

Park Joo Bong won both mens and mixed at 85 worlds and 91 worlds, plus mixed at the 89 worlds. (The worlds were held every four years until 91). At the 92 Olympics badminton was included for the first time, but there was no mixed, Park won the mens Gold then.

Given the greater frequency of these majors in Kim's career he hasn't as yet matched PJB's achievements. WHilst his mixed record is equal and he has dominated totally on the circuit in recent years his mens doubles record is not as great as you would expect. This is partly down to his partner's injuries in recent years and partly since the mens doubles circuit is more competitive than ever.

[wonyang]

Mervin Gibbs.He was known as Merve the Swerve.He has shown a few international players how to play clever and skilled badminton. He only played All England at Wembly. He never played any other major tournaments for whatever reasons. Once in the All England he took the great Park Joo Bong to three sets in the mixed doubles with a club standard lady partner. After a great display of badminton Mervin lost in the third set 17-15.
He still plays and wins old mans All England.

[koboduck]

Hey ns!
I tend to agree with you here! A few years ago there was a survey among top players about who was the best mens' singles player of all time. Most of them voted for Zhao. Only Ardi and Hartono said they liked Yang Yang better because he had more of a winner's attitude, while Zhao was the greatest talent but tended to throw matches when he was bored. Last year a similar survey was repeated and still most of them voted for Zhao. A lot of players have high hopes for Lin Dan's development if he stays free of injury until 26.
Finally, there's a lot to say for Mr Dew-Hattens' choice. An Indonesian coach agreed that Christian might have beaten Hartono if allowed, but a Hartono defeat would not be popular and also diminish the Hartono effect on Thomas Cup rivals Malaysia and possible give them clues.

[koboduck]

And I would also like to comment on Dave Freeman. He was practically unbeatable in 1949, but left the international stage after that year. I don't think he would have continued to dominate. In my opinion, his achievements were not accomplished because of his great badminton talent, but because he was the first to train seriously and relatively professionally. His fitness allowed him to beat more talented players like Wong Peng Soon, who practised less and more leisurely which was normal in those days. He had an awkward grip and his game was based on clears. His serious approach of the game has surely influenced badminton after 1949.

[stuartwardell]

There are three types of players for me who should take this crown.

Firstly a player who is the most talented player, who looks good and has the best style and movement.
For me that has to be Zhao.
His racket preperation was the best I have seen for a long time.
Where ever he is the racket is always prepared which is why he seems to have all the time in the world.

Gerald mentioned that this was down to deception and although I agree with this the basis of the deception was the same simple racket preperation all the time and players could not read where it was going.

His movement was so in time with his hitting action that he never looked out of position.

His sometimes strange footwork in places was down to reading what his opponent was going to do.
A good example of this was in the All England final against Yoko where Zhao would twist his stance around when Yoko was about to hit the shuttle from the rear once Zhao had got him in the corners.

Yoko could do a number of shots but the change of stance from Zhao enabled him to move to a jump smash in just two steps.
At this time the change in stance was a big gamble as Yoko could play other shots but Zhao was right every time and the smash came thundering down.

Not many players to date use this footwork except Chen Hong who hits very similar to Zhao who in turn has the same weakness

secondly, the best player of all time for me has to be Yang Yang because he got the best results.
Even the Indo's could not break him down because he used the same weapons that they had which was to run.

What made him the best was that he had a very quick over head action which was totaly the opposite to Zhao's.

It wasn't a clean swing but that was why it also was effective.
Players could not break him down as he was to fast.

Lastly if there was a player who made the best of his career it would have to be Hoyer Larsen.

Here was a player that managed to peak towards the end of his career and win some major titals beating the asians with his technic, style and deception.

[badmojo]

Dave Freeman's claim to fame was that he was the nemesis of the then king of the badminton hill, maestro Wong Peng Soon. Peng Soon always faltered in his meetings with Freeman. I don't think this was an accurate reflection on the skills and talent of Freeman. He just so happened to get the better of Peng Soon all the time. There is no indication that he would have fared as well against 'lesser players'. General consensus of the day was that Freeman had this tremendous height advantage which was sufficient for him to win matches in the days of the 'lob & drop' game. His movements on court was at best awkward.