Dutch Open 2009 Begins

Dutch open main draw started today, qualifying started yesterday and saw unfortunate Nicola Cerfontyne lose her second and final match denying her a place in the main draw. Three of the english mixed pairs made it through to the second round of the main today but Dean George and Sam Ward lost in 3 sets to a Danish pair, Chris Langridge also lost in 3 games to seeds. Ladies singles saw Helen Davies win a close 3 set game to take her through to the second round.

Mens singles had three english representatives however only two are through to the second round. Rajiv Ouseph and Jamie Bonsels won their games comfortably both in 2 straight sets but Carl Baxter lost a very close 3 set match against the German Marcel Reuter 24-22 in the last end. Kieran Merrilees of Scotland also had an epic 3 set match with 2 of those games going to setting

Badminton 2012 opposed switch to Wembley Arena

Mayor of London Boris Johnson has opposed that badminton and rhythmic gymnastics switch venues, this would mean the two events move from North Greenwich Arena 2 (proposed venue), which would be a temporary venue, to Wembley Arena.

This switch would move the event away from the Olympic Village. The Mayor believes costs would be reduced if held at the Wembley Arena but surely the switch would hinder the quality of the badminton due to the extra stress and strain on the players from the added travelling to and from the venue. Boris argues that there is no point in spending more money on a temporary venue that will surely get scrapped after the Olympics anyway because we have a perfectly good local venue as it is, in the Wembley Arena. Badminton England say "we are not encouraging conversation about using the Wembley Arena."

I personally back Badminton England on this and believe that when an event is moved away from the Olympic area that it is only the sport that suffers, not only may it disprove the quality of badminton on show but could have the affect of lowering attendance at the badminton. I can understand that Boris Johnson does not want to spend money when he doesn't have to at this time in the economy but isn't the Olympics about sport and encouraging participation, it is an event watched by the whole world, so surely badminton should come first here.

I'm behind Badminton England here but let me know whose side of the argument you support, I feel most badminton players will feel as strongly as I do.

Badminton Shadow Drill

Just uploaded a video on YouTube so feel free to check it out. It just me and my training partner doing some shadow as part of our fitness training. Feel free to make comments on what you think but I hope for those who need to improve the footwork side to their game that it helps.

Take into account that this is not normal shadow, its a Peter Rasmussen footwork drill where emphasis is on getting into a rhythm so we focused mostly on the movement to the shuttle. Have a look you'll see what I mean:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zpCbM63Bm0

Bitburger Open 2009 Results

Bitburger Open in Germany this week, the best result from the english players was Andrew Ellis and Chris Adcock reaching the final in the mens doubles. They lost a very close fought to the Indian pair who were number 1 seeds Kumar and Thomas 17-21 22-20 24-22, a game lasting 67 minutes.

Results here for mens doubles:
http://www.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/draw.aspx?id=6E06A49A-1554-4F53-A9B7-0108860FE6FC&draw=37

Carl Baxter put in a good performance reaching the semi's of the mens singles losing to the second seed.

The weekend produced some closely fought games and overall I would say a good weekend for the english players.

Badminton Footwork Videos Online!

I want to discuss, the amount and the quality of badminton videos online. It is fair to say that there are plenty of videos online when it comes to Opens and Super Series events but are there many videos of how to play badminton for those who want to improve their game?

There are a few videos out there that help you improve your game but the majority of these videos tend to be very poor. Over half the footwork videos I have watched on sites like YouTube are rubbish, the people in these videos have not played to a good enough standard themselves to be able to help someone else learn. As a result what they are saying is often wrong and how is this going to improve your game when your practicing the wrong footwork. This means people will learn incorrect footwork patterns and create habits which are hard to correct.

Could you please share your views. Am I the only one with this opinion and who else feels these types of videos are not helping badminton progress. As a result I'm thinking of starting my own badminton video, what do you think?

Badminton Singles Players: My favourite!

Lin Dan is my favourite singles player, probably with Lee Chong Wei as a close runner up. Lin Dan is in a differnet league to everyone else, he has an awesome all round game where he is strong in all deparments. He makes the game look so easy and effortless like he has so much time to move and pick his shot, just quality.

Lee Chong Wei however must have the best defence, he is so quick just gets everything back and I think he has a better defence then Lin Dan. Another contender for many people would be Taufik Hidayat because of his amazing backhand, many say he has the best backhand in the game and how can you argue when he has the fastest backhand smash.

I'm sure there are some new up and coming players with their own unique abilities, but is anyone going to be able to match Lin Dan?

Check this link out, probably one of the better matches between the 2 monsters, Swiss Open 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knv0MbcqrUw