Saturday, April 16, 2011

Badminton 2011

An overview of Badminton in the year 2011.

Badminton as a sport is fast spreading its wings across the globe. We had a remarkable last year (2010) that marked the rise of some exciting players such as Saina Nehwal and displayed the explosive magic of Malaysian badminton star Lee Chong Wei.

This article looks at some of the major badminton events held so far in the year 2011, and the results.


Badminton 2011
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Major badminton events held in Jan-2011

VICTOR-BWF Super Series-2010 Finals

Badminton in the new year 2011 started with a bang in the new year with the VICTOR-BWF Super Series-2010 Finals that was played from the 5th to 9th Jan-2011 in Chinese Taipei.

As per BWF's regulations, Only the top eight singles badminton players and top 8 doubles pairs based on the 2010 Super Series standings may participate at the BWF Super Series Finals.

A couple of the top players had to give the event a miss. Most notable was the absence of badminton star Saina Nehwal of India in the women's singles who withdrew at the last moment due to an ankle injury, and Lin Dan of China, one of the best men badminton players of the world, who failed to qualify for the finals due to having limited appearances in the Super-Series circuit in the previous year 2010.

The winners of the BWF Super Series finals held in Jan-2011 were:
Men's Singles: Lee Chong Wei (Malaysia)
Women's Singles: Shixian Wang (China)
Men's doubles: Carsten Mogensen / Mathias Boe (Denmark)
Women's doubles: Xiaoli Wang/ Yang Yu (China)
Mixed doubles: Nan Zhang / Yunlei Zhao (China)
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PROTON Malaysia Open Super Series-2011

The first super series event of the year 2011, the PROTON Malaysia Open Super Series was held at Kuala Lampur in Malaysia from 18th to 23rd Jan-2011. Badminton star Saina Nehwal of India again missed this event due to her injury. The women' singles event saw the complete domination of the Chinese women with all the 4 semi-finalist slots being taken by China. In fact all the badminton events were dominated by the Chinese, except for the men's singles where Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia was the winner, and Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia was the runner-up.

The winners of Proton Malaysia Super Series-2011 were:
Men's Singles: Lee Chong Wei (Malaysia)
Women's Singles: Shixian Wang (China)
Men's doubles: Biao Chai / Zhendong Guo(China)
Women's doubles: Qing Tian / Yunlei Zhao (China)
Mixed doubles: Hanbin He / Jin Ma (China)
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Victor Korea Open-Super Series Premier-2011 badminton event:


Immediately after the Malaysia SS event was the SS premier event that was held from 25th to 30th Jan at Seoul in Korea. This time 6th seeded Lin Dan of China stopped top seed Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia in the finals to bag the men's singles title. In the men's doubles Korean pair of Jae Sung Jung / Yong Dae Lee (Korea) made the most of home conditions to take the title.

Winners of Korea open super series premier-2011 were:
Men's Singles: Lin Dan (China)
Women's Singles: Yihan Wang (China)
Men's doubles: Jae Sung Jung / Yong Dae Lee (Korea)
Women's doubles: Xiaoli Wang / Yang Yu (China)
Mixed doubles: Nan Zhang / Yunlei Zhao (China)
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Other than these prestigious events, the Yonex Estonian International Series event and the Swedish International Challenge badminton events were played in the month of Jan-2011.
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Major Badminton events held in FEB-2011

The major badminton events held in Feb were the European Mixed Team Championships-2011 that was played from 15th-20th Feb, the Iran Fajr International challenge-2011 that was held  from 16-19 Feb, and the Austrian International challenge which was played from 23-26th Feb-2011
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Major Badminton events held in MAR-2011

Yonex German Open Grand Prix Gold-2011 badminton event:

The German Open GP Gold tournament was played in Germany from the 1st to 6th March.
The winners were:
Men's Singles: Lin Dan (China)
Women's Singles: Xin Liu (China)
Men's doubles: Jae Sung Jung / Yong Dae Lee (Korea)
Women's doubles: Mizuki Fujii / Reika Kakiiwa (Japan)
Mixed doubles: Robert Blair (Scotland) / Gabrielle White (England)
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Yonex All-England Open Super Series Premier-2011 badminton event:

The badminton world's most prestigous badminton tournament the All-England Open SS Premier was played in England from the 8th to 13th March. Lee Chong Wei got the better of arch rival Lin Dan this time round.

The winners were:
Men's Singles: Lee Chong Wei (Malaysia)
Women's Singles: Shixian Wang (China)
Men's doubles: Mathias Boe / Carsten Mogensen (Denmark)
Women's doubles: Xiaoli Wang / Yang Yu (China)
Mixed doubles: Chen Xu / Jin Ma (China)
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Wilson Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold-2011 badminton event:

The Swiss Open GP Gold tournament was played at Basel in Switzerland from the 15th to 20th March. Koreans did very well in the event bagging 3 out of 5 titles on offer. Saina Nehwal won her first title of the year 2011. The Chinese players had decided to give this event a miss.
The winners were:
Men's Singles: Sung Hwan Park (Korea)
Women's Singles: Saina Nehwal (India)
Men's doubles: Sung Hyun Ko / Yeon Seong Yoo (Korea)
Women's doubles: Jung Eun Ha / Min Jung Kim (Korea)
Mixed doubles: Joachim Fischer Nielsen / Christinna Pedersen (Denmark)
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Several other International series and International challenge tournaments were also held in the month of March such as the Roofings Uganda international series-2011, the 35th Polish Open international challenge, the Vietnam Open-2011 international challenge, the New Zealand Open International challenge, and the Croatian International challenge badminton tournaments. March-2011 was a busy month for international badminton :)
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Major Badminton events held so far in APR-2011

Yonex Australian Open GP Gold-2011:

The highlight of the event was the domination of the Japanese players as they went on to win 3 out of the 5 titles that were on offer.

The winners were:
Men's Singles: Sho Sasaki (Japan)
Women's Singles: Xin Liu (China)
Men's doubles: Hiroyuki Endo / Kenichi Hayakawa (Japan)
Women's doubles: Shizuka Matsuo / Mami Naito (Japan)
Mixed doubles: Songphon Anugritayawon / Kunchala Voravichitchaikul (Thailand)


Such has been the year 2011 for badminton so far. Busy and exciting.
And the year 2011 has a lot more in store. Badminton is growing. Spreading its wings.


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