Thomas Cup - it's China again!

Badminton would always be one of my favorite sports, other than soccer since I was in primary school. I missed the era of Misbun Sidek and his other colleagues, but it's still fresh in my mind where his other brothers, namely Razif, Jailani and Rashid were playing for Malaysia back there. The most indelible moment was obviously during the Thomas Cup 1992 championships. Some of other prominent names were Foo Kok Keong, Cheah Soon Kit and Soo Beng Kiang. They were all the real fighters for Malaysia at that time. Since that, I was trying hardly not to miss the championships. However, Malaysia has never won any Thomas cup tittle after that year too.

Historically, Thomas Cup championships have been conducted every two years since the 1982 tournament (I was not yet born at that time). Before that, it has been conducted every three years since the first tournament held in 1948-1949. As known, Indonesia is the most successful team by winning the tittle for thirteen times, followed by China (7 times) and Malaysia (5 times - 1949, 1952, 1955, 1967, 1992). These are the only three countries which have won the championships even though some other countries, like Denmark, Thailand and the latest, Korea were able to went through to the final. Source: Wikipedia - Thomas Cup

Thomas and Uber Cup

And, the Thomas Cup 2008 championships has just ended yesterday, where the Chinese again retained the tittle, consecutively since 2004. China has beaten Korea 3-1. However, in the semi final, China beat Malaysia 3-2. It was a close match at all, and it seems that Malaysia was better perhaps. I, and I believe the Malaysian as well, was pretty sure if Malaysia able to defeat China in the semi final, then the Thomas Cup would have been stolen from them. I just don't know what to say about our players, especially the first double. And Hafiz Hashim also seems not in his best performance yet. But when I watched Lee Chong Wei's play, it was totally superb, and of course plus the bad performance by Lin Dan too. Congratulation also to the young double, Mohd Zakry Latif and Mohd Fairurizuan Tazari who have convincingly defeated the world number 9 double from China to make the match even, and saved Malaysia from early defeat.

Last night, I watched the match between China & Korea. I just don't care who's gonna win the tittle, but somehow I hoped that Korea would win it. It was really shocked when the first single of Korea, Park Sung-Hwan defeated the world number 1, Lin Dan in the first game 21-10. But as expected, there shouldn't be a problem for Lin Dan to come back and turned down the Korean in the next two games. Then, the Korean was able to make the match even when their first double (world number 3) beat the Chinese double (world number 2). It was an amazing performance and defense shown by the Korean double I must admit. Well, I've never expected the match between the second single of Korean, Lee Hyun-Il against Chinese world number 3, Bao Chunlai would be that close and exciting. It was also the first time I watched a match where a winner won against his opponent by 28-26.

Ok, that's enough, otherwise, I'll be a nonprofessional sports commentator here..hehe. Lastly, I wish the Malaysia team will do better in the next two years Thomas Cup championships, which will be held in Kuala Lumpur. Until 2008, the nation has been waiting for 16 years to seize the most prestigious cup in badminton arena.