yonex all england 2005

[NotBornYesterday]

anyone going to birmingham for the all england? :)

it'd be good to get some first-hand news. and seeing that most of the inhabitants here stay in the vicinity...

[Alex]

anyone going to birmingham for the all england? :)

it'd be good to get some first-hand news. and seeing that most of the inhabitants here stay in the vicinity...

The parents have gone down, with tickets into the "members area" whatever that means?

Unfortunately, i am busy in work, would have liked to go.

[NeilNicholls]

I went yesterday.
My first time there, so I didn't particularly know where to go.
I saw a door that said ground floor seating and assumed that it was the lower blocks of seats.
I ended up in the front couple of seats where the players and coaches go.
But I was there before the players had turned up so I didn't know.
I ended up sitting next to Shon Seung-Mo amongst the Korean squad

[NotBornYesterday]

The parents have gone down, with tickets into the "members area" whatever that means?

Unfortunately, i am busy in work, would have liked to go.

in that case, you must be attending the SF or Finals or both. GREAT! look forward to hear from you- for your experience and of course, the most anticipated matches.

wow, Neil. which match did ya watch or focus on? :)

[NeilNicholls]

I'd started around court 4 so I could watch Ghaffar v Bellingham on 5 and Chen Hong v Martyn Lewis on 3. The first Korean match was Ahn Hyun-Suk v Bjoern Joppien on court 4, which I guess is why the Korean squad sat by 4.

After that I moved over to 2 and 3 to watch Jonassen v Honey, Rice v Boesen, Kidd v Dabeka

down to 6 for Xia Xuanze v Lee Hyun Il

up to 1 and 2 to watch Wong Choon Hann v Jang Young Soo and Peter Gade v Lee Tsuen Seng
from there I saw some of Roebuck/Parker v Laybourn/Juhl
then it was about 3PM

there wasn't going to be anything I fancied watching until about 10PM so I left.

[dlp]

I watched similar matches to Neil, then the English womens singles but like Neil left unable to stay for some of the better matches on very late

[Badboy]

I was there from 4:30 onwards helping as a "mopper" :D
spoke to a few of the players, and looking around the crowd it was the same few people from the local/junior circuits and people i already knew, however, there was a definate increase in numbers even until later in the evening for some of the later english matches, and all the english pairs were well supported so well done the crowd and well done to the baofe, the tv coverage from the olympics and promotions with nathan and gail do seem to have helped the attendance levels.
The tournament was a bit strangely organised in which they had a lot of womens singles during the peak times and lots of mens dobules matches at 10-11pm onwards. Trace played fairly well but did probably lose out to the more consistant player and liz cann did well to get through comfy.
The "star attractions" were on not longer after with nathan/gail, anthony/donna munt/blair playing at the same time. Nathan played well, didnt pose much and so they won their mixed pretty comfy, however donna and athony had a tough first match and after battling into the lead 13-8 in the third, anthony seemed to lose his bottle/concentration for a while and they managed to lose it. When they came off donna seemed furious to put it nicely and anthony looked well gutted, as you can imagine. Blair and munt had a tough game but also battled through well, i was sitting near the courts as a "mopper" and so got to hear rexy's chat, and when they came off in the 5 minute break he was quite a bit sharper then i expectied him to be, but i suppose it isnt a time to mess about.
I was then called on to mop and score a game between arvind Bhat [IND] and LIAO Sheng-Shiun [TPE]. Was a long game, over an hour and a half. The tapei player should of won it comfy in the second, but changed his rallying game to a more attacking game and this suited the indian player. He did however, get a telling off from his coach and changed back to his rallying game, murdering the indian player in the third to the point where the indian either got cramp or pulled a muscle in his leg and the tapei player just picked him off. The indian player did like to show his disagreement with the line judges quite frequently and called me on several times to wipe his sweat up, all two dots of them at a time, talk about blagging for time.
Then got site of a racket flying into the air shortly followed by a roar from the crowd and found out that ghaffar had just beat palyama from NED who beat him 2 n 3 at the german open last week.
The only other game i got to mop for was lin dan vs kasper oedum. Lin asked me on twice, once after diving and once for a few drops, however he was the only player who said anything to me and he even said thank you, so lin is a top bloke, not just a good player where as the dane just grunted at me, so i knew who i was supporting to win that match...
Lin was playing a similar game to the tapei player by rallying the dane a lot then hitting him with tight cross courts and angled cross court smashes. In the second he sort of lost concentration and was hitting short a lot and the tall dane made him pay. Then in the third he started hitting a better length again and went 8-1 up, they then swapped round and the dane pulled some points back before lin stepped up the pace of the game from slow to very quick with lots of smashes and cuts and the dane just couldnt keep up.
After this a lot of the mens doubles matches were on, with robertson n blair winning easy and clark and archer making hard work of their game. Lindley and roebuck had an epic three setter which they won through. The english-indo pairing and chris tonks/peter jeffery were on last with tonks/jeffery playing well and winning easy and the english-indo's losing heavily making lots of mistakes on the attack. By the time these finished the time must of been nearly 12:30 slightly behind schedule but worth the wait
Overall a very enjoyable night even with the super expensive food and quite cold hall.

[NeilNicholls]

up until when I left I reckon the place was only about a third full at the most

[Badboy]

When i attended the semi's last year the place was only half full at best, so for a first round day to be three quarters filled up till about 9-10ish is a great improvement

[NotBornYesterday]

I was there from 4:30 onwards helping as a "mopper" :D
spoke to a few of the players, and looking around the crowd it was the same few people from the local/junior circuits and people i already knew, however, there was a definate increase in numbers even until later in the evening for some of the later english matches, and all the english pairs were well supported so well done the crowd and well done to the baofe, the tv coverage from the olympics and promotions with nathan and gail do seem to have helped the attendance levels..

....

wow! that's a mighty long report!! :D.. but very much appreciated i promise you :)

so you're a volunteer. how nice. and judging from your narration, the BAofE/BE sure has done a good job for the AE. there's nothing like knowing badminton getting attention.

and yes, considering, Neil, that it's only the early rounds, and it being a weekday, the attendance is very encouraging. ;)

[flamingjam]

went on wednesday to see the england lot playin was decent number of people there and some decent support , i was told Friday Saturady and Sunday were fully sold out on wedsnesday there was 1 ticket left for the finals :p :D

[tango]

i went to the all england on thursday and as usual it was excellent. i was disappointed that i missed elizabeth cann play singles and surprised that tracey hallam got knocked out so soon especially since she pulled out all the stops against camilla martin? the game against peter gade and muhammed hasim was fantastic. i feel the pairing of elizabeth cann and tracey hallam in ladies doubles was a big mistake and didn't work at all - they are both very good singles players and should possibly stick to that.

i was also supporting the scottish team and it was a shame that yuan weymess lost her singles since she was doing so well and i think that michelle douglas is a promising new talent. she may have lost her ladies doubles game but i believe she will do very well in the future.

the other mistake in pairings i witnessed was joanne muggeridge having to play ladies doubles with the canadian female. that didn't work too well because it looked like joanne was coaching her partner whilst trying to play skilful shots because her partner seemed confused which shots she should have been going for.

alas i had to leave just when the female denmark doubles pair had just got some points against the chinese ladies pairings - i would have liked to have seen how that game finished rather than just seeing the scores.

all in all - a very good day with excellent games to watch and yes i will be going in january next year and hopefully staying over.

[flamingjam]

Was quite disppointed with tracy really thk she has a thingy bout the AE? shes been knocked out in the first round 7 out of 9 tournaments at the AE she fought back well after a disasterous first 11-0 game but just fell short. Hirose is a shineing light for japanese badminton and was a tough draw

Erikseens and lundgaards (1*) loss to Ha and Yim (8*) is a bit of a shock excepted that pair to be europes main hope suppose that now goes the robertson and emms now they seem finally to be havin a great run at the AE..

[Badboy]

to be fair to trace, hirose beat several top 10 players last week at the german open and hasnt exactly been slacking here either..

[flamingjam]

Finally great stuff an english finalist at the AE well done nathan and gail obviously and good performance so far....and they shud win it!!

what other good performances were there from other home nation players do you think? Blair and Munt, Ghaffer?

[Woody]

Natalie and Robert played well in stages in their quarter final but were only playing in fits and starts.

Good performance to get that far.

Hope Gail & Nathan can achive their aim tommorow

[NotBornYesterday]

anyof you watched the MD game between the indonesians and danes pair of jonas rasmussen and lars paaske? the whole match was exuding energy and quick response! those unbelievably long rallies! i would have died had i been there playing.

[coops]

Huraah - congrats to Nathan and Gail on becoming All England champions 2005..

[NotBornYesterday]

Huraah - congrats to Nathan and Gail on becoming All England champions 2005..

did you watch the match? i think the english duo had it quite easy despite the overall score. roberson was only showing his true colours over the last couple of points. good for english badminton!:D


psst! i was the 1001th viewer of this thread! hahahah! couldn't resist that