Transmenu powered by JoomlArt.com - Mambo Joomla Professional Templates Club

East Asian badminton powerhouses China and Korea had to be resurrected from the dead to have their attendance marked at the Uber Cup semi-finals tomorrow. Both countries registered long and torturous comeback wins against their quarter-final opponents on the evening session of the 2008 Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Jakarta and will play each other in the semi-final tomorrow.

By Jan Lin, reporting live from Senayan Stadium, Jakarta. Photos: Badmintonphoto (live)

Until the 2006 Uber Cup, Korea had qualified for the semi-finals of every Uber Cup they had ever participated in and had never won against China. At the 2008 Uber Cup, this East Asian tigress has made up for her glitch in 2006 by qualifying for the semi-finals at the expense of Malaysia, whose hope for qualifying for the Uber Cup semi-finals for the first time ever was dashed when they went down 1-3 to Korea.

In the absence of Korea's #1 women’s singles player Jun Jae Youn, Korean’s 2^nd singles Hwang Hye Youn had to shoulder the responsibility of facing off against Malaysia’s golden girl Wong Mew Choo (pictured right). The Korean started the match positively racing to a 7-1 lead and taking the half-time lead 11-5.

After receiving half-time advice from Misbun Sidek and Rashid Sidek, Wong was altogether a different player returning to the court. Taking a point at a time, Wong crawled back to level up with Hwang at 13-13. With new-found confidence, Wong started gaining control of the match and was unstoppable as she stomped to a 21-16, 21-5 victory to put her team 1-0 ahead.

Two scratch pairs of women’s doubles then took to the courts: representing Malaysia was team captain Lim Pek Siah teaming up with Wong Pei Tty, while Korea had their doubles queen Lee Hyo Jung teaming up with Kim Min Jung. Apart from running into each other at one point, the Korean ladies were evidently more comfortable with their scratch partnership than the Malaysians were with theirs.

Dominating from start to the end, Lee/Kim overpowered Lim/Wong 21-13, 21-4 in 28 minutes to cancel out the advantage Malaysia had held earlier. Korea’s world #38 Lee Yun Hwa then shouldered on the responsibility of upsetting Malaysia’s world #29 Julia Wong in the 2^nd singles duel to give Korea a crucial lead.

Julia, who put on a splendid performance yesterday to send Malaysia through to the quarters, couldn’t find her usual touch this evening and she fell 14-21, 13-21 putting Malaysia in an extremely precarious position to qualify for the semis.

Malaysia’s 2^nd scratch doubles pairing of Chin Eei Hui and Ng Hui Lin had given the Malaysian camp a brief glimmer of hope when they took the first game off Korea’s second scratch pair Lee Kyung Won and Ha Jung Eun.

But tonight, the Koreans were the hungrier team as they pressed on for that semi-final ticket with ever-increasing resilience. Lee/Ha swiftly recovered from their one-game deficit to send Korea through in scores of 17-21, 21-16, 21-12.

Korea was first to join Germany and Indonesia in the Uber Cup semi-finals tomorrow. Ironically, the last to book the fourth and final semi-final berth was China.

The ten-time Uber Cup champion was forced to play all 5 matches by 2006 runners-up, the Netherlands before the world #3 women’s doubles pai Wei Yili/Zhang Yawen finally clinched the decider for the East Asian Tiger.

The Netherlands' leading lady, world #17 Yao Jie, began the havoc by taking down world #1 Xie Xinfang in three thrilling games. The usually composed and consistent Xie looked out of sorts today and was visibly affected by a handful of dubious line calls that went against her.

The 31-year-old Yao Jie clearly ran out of steam in the tiebreaker but her determination to repeat her team’s semi-final feat of 2006 drove her on to remove Xie 14-21, 21-12, 21-16 in absolute style. Yao’s victory was a timely psychological boost for her 2nd and 3rd singles of the night -- Judith Meulendijks and Rachel Van Cutsen (pictured left).

Both native Dutch players were ruthless in their attacks towards their Chinese counterparts. Backed by the Indonesian supporters, both players took their first games comfortably, leaving the Chinese to claw their way back to reach for a tiebreaker.

The only difference between Judith’s and Rachel’s performance tonight was, Rachel managed to convert the tiebreaker in her favour while Judith missed out on hers by a mere whisker. Judith fell to a nervous world #2 Lu Lan (pictured top) by the heart-breaking scores of 10-21, 21-18, 22-20 despite holding the first match point in the tiebreaker.

Meanwhile, world #70 Rachel completely humbled world #35 Jiang Yan Jiao with her positive and energetic approach to her match, which she won by a commendable 21-14, 11-21, 21-16 after 39 minutes to regain the lead for her team. China had to bank on its reliable women’s doubles pairs to send them through to the semi-finals.

The convincing doubles victories of world #1 Yang Wei/Zhang Jiewen and world #3 Wei Yili/Zhang Yawen may have taken China to the semi-finals but they were not enough to override the damage that the Netherlands have done on them this evening.

Netherlands’ head coach Martijn Van Dooremalen said “I don’t think we can say that if Judith had won, we would have definitely won the tie. Had we been 2-0 up, Rachel might have been under too much pressure and not have played as well as she did to defeat the Chinese.

“But what is clear from tonight’s tie is that the Chinese are not invincible and they can lose their composure when they are under pressure too, which should be good news for the other semi-finalists. I hope Korea will be able to do what we didn’t today.”

So it seems, the first 2008 Uber Cup semi-final tie, to be played on Thursday at 1pm, will be down to which of these 2 East Asian tigresses will race to the finish line first.