China retains Sudirman Cup

By Prakash Padukone

SEVILLE, JUNE 2. China won the prestigious Sudirman Cup for the fourth successive time by downing former champion Indonesia 3-1 in the final at the San Pablo Stadium here on Saturday.

It was expected that China would triumph after it had beaten Denmark in the semifinals on Friday and it lived upto the expectations to once again confirm that it is best all-round team in the world.

The final began on a positive note for the Indonesians when their men's doubles pair of Tony Gunawan and Candra Wijaya scored an impressive 15-13, 15-1 win over Zhang Jun and Zhang Wei. Tony and Candra had a tough time sorting out the right hand- left hand combination of the Chinese.

The southpaw Zhang, in particular seemed to be all over the court in the first game but the experience of the Indonesians helped them recover from 10-12 down to win the game 15-13. But there was very little to choose between the two pairs in this game.

It was a completely different story in the next as the Indonesians ran away with the game conceding only a solitary point in the process. It was possible that Zhang was trying to be fresh for the mixed doubles and hence did not try hard enough.

It made sense as the Chinese had a better chance of winning the mixed doubles than men's doubles. Neverthless, this Chinese pair has improved considerably and could well be the dark horse of the tournament in men's doubles.

The women's doubles was a complete washout for the Indonesians as the Chinese pair was a class apart. In a completely one-sided encounter, Gao Ling and Sui Huang outclassed the Indonesian pair of Lomban and Tantri 15-1, 15-2 in 25 minutes to level the tie.

The Indonesians made a change in the men's singles line-up by bringing in the experienced Hendrawan in place of young Taufik Hidayat. But the move backfired as he lost to Chen Hong 12-15, 15-13, 10-15 to concede the initiative to China.

Gong Zhichao made no mistake in her match against Yuli Marfuah and completed the formality by winning in two games. With China having already won the tie 3-1, there was no need to play the last mixed doubles

Earlier, China had entered the final when it came from behind to oust European champion Denmark 3-2. Though Denmark had reached the finals on many occasions, it had never won the title, while on the other hand China, on the strength of its women's team, had triumphed on three successive occasions in the past - in 1995, 97 & 99.

Denmark had a definite plan for this tournament from the start. It preferred to take on defending champions China at the last four stage itself, when its players would be fresh, rather than play in the final when it was likely that the top players could be a little tired after playing the semifinals. As the semifinals and finals were slated on two successive days, I thought this was a good tactical move on the part of the Danes.

It was a different matter that the plan did not work. Unfortunately for the Danes, the last men's doubles proved to be disastrous as the top Danish pair of Jens Eriksen and Jesper Larsen could not handle the pressure and surrendered meekly to Zhang Jun and Zhang Wei in straight games to concede the tie.

Denmark took the lead by winning the first mixed doubles. Then Gong Zhi Chao of China thrashed world No. 1 Camilla Martin in the women's singles for the loss of only one point. It surprised the pundits for the manner in which it was achieved as it is not very often that a world No. 1 gets beaten without scoring many a point.

Camilla's fiance Peter Gade had no such problems against Chen Hong, runner-up to Gopi Chand in the recent All- England championships, and won as expected in two games to put Denmark back in the lead.

With Denmark fielding its third doubles combination, it was a foregone conclusion that China would win the women's doubles. Therefore the men's doubles assumed great importance, which unfortunately Denmark lost.

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