I was watching the All England 2010 Qualifying matches yesterday and paid special attention to one of our IBA players, Christian Lind Thomsen (Denmark). He played two awesome matches to get himself into the main draw. However I was told of a youtube video that captured the last few moments of his qualification victory. I think it is really worth watching:)
This week’s song of the week is Right Here,Right Now by Fatboy Slim. I heard this song in another beer commercial and got hooked:) Very cool beat and really enjoy the build ups for the chorus. I can get pretty pumped when hearing these songs and sometimes can’t sleep!
I could not find the orginal video so I chose this one that has some neat Rally car racing in the desert:)
Enjoy!
On Wednesday I had the chance to play a very good player from Hong Kong, Wing Ki Wong. It was the first round of the German Open 2010. As I was warming up I was having flashbacks of last year’s match against Hans Kristian Vittinghus (Denmark) where he just whooped me on court 1. I remember the court because on that day I could not see the shuttle to save my life. I was praying that I would play on any court but that one. As luck or fate should have it, I was called on court one to face Wing Ki Wong and my fear of that court.
Uncertain of many things I just decided to relax and play and see how things go in the beginning. It was a good choice since I took an early lead of 8-2 and 11-7. I was winning many points by really punching him to the back line and then stinging him with some slices and steep smashes. The shuttles were very slow so the big smash was not very useful. However he started to crawl back by doing the same to me and being very steady. We were having very long and painful rallies since none of us wanted to make a mistake. I ended up being in the lead 19-18 when he then played 2 good rallies by taking the initiative and then closed the set by countering my attack.
In the second set it was a little bit of the reverse. He took an early lead and was up all through the first half. The rallies were very similar, lots of punching the shuttle to the back line and trying to put enough pressure around the court to find an oppening. The player who pressured most usualy won the rally. However from being down 11-14, I came back to 14-14. He then went up 17-14 and I came back to 17-17. At 18-18 he once again played two very good rallies and then countered my attacks on his match point. It was a shame since we were even all the way through and then I missed out on those last few rallies.
He then went on to beat the number one Chinese Taipei who is 17th in the world and Przemyslaw Wacha (Poland). So I think I played very well against a world class player.
My next tournament will be in Romania where I hope to produce a very good result!
In order to see the results for the German Open 2010 please click on the link below
DRAW
This week’s song of the week is not really a song. It’s a Canadian Beer commercial that is funny and inspiring and after our incredible result at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games and our hockey team claiming the Gold in a breathtaking fashion….I felt obliged to be patriotic and post something that raises our flag high. Hope you enjoy it.
Today I flew into Mulheim,Germany, for the German Open 2010. The draw came out a little while ago and I have been matched up against….no not a qualifier (that is only when I play EBU’s)…but against Wing Ki Wong of Hong Kong. I have never heard of him or seen him play before, however I did do a little background check and could see that he has beaten some good players. So I plan to avenge my not so impressive performance of last year by rising up to the challenge of this new Hong Kong kid.
I am not too sure what time I play yet since the schedule (from what I can see) is not out yet. But if you follow the link below you will be able to view the draw and maybe even follow my match on livescore:)
DRAW
Yesterday I played my first round at the Austrian International 2010 against Simon Manoury of France. I had played once about 5 years ago in Latvia where he beat me in two straight sets. I was hoping to have a better memory of our match up this time. In the first set we started out pretty even and I took an 11-9 lead. The second half of the set continued to be good for me with some clever net play and some crafty defence. However once at 17-13 for me something changed and I seemed not to be able to recover. From having a 17-13 lead I suddenly lost 8 out of the next 9 rallies. which meant that I lost the first set 21-19.
In the second set we continued to be quite even, both of us gunning for the net since it was very difficult to control the fast shuttles. Keeping the net was the best way to force a mistake out of your opponent. We were even all the way to 19-19 where I played a bad serve to give him match point and then he played a very good rally to counter my offence and win the match.
Not so happy about that result and do not like losing again when I have taken a good lead. However hopefully this is just a one month phase and I will be back to my winning ways next month….which is in Germany.
See you there!
This weeks song of the week is nineteen hundred and yesterday by D.A.D. This song was chosen by a very famous badminton player…..at the international badminton academy…the one…..and only…..Christian Lind Thomsen:) Apparently D.A.D is a danish band but for some reason sing in english. This song got me in the first 10 seconds so I hope you give it a chance…if not you can write and complain to Christian on his website www.christianlind.dk
Enjoy the song and Christian´s website!
This year’s Austrian International 2010 draw has been released. As usual these EBU tournaments are tough as nails. You have guys like Andre Kurniawan Tedjono (Indonesia), Anand Pawar (India), Brice Leverdez (France) and Christian Lind Thomson (Denmark) competing.
It might come as a massive shock to all of you that my first round will be against…….wait for it…….a qualifier! Yes it is now the 5th EBU tournament in a row that I get a qualifier. However I have also won 3 out of 4 of my first round matches against a qualifier (my only defeat happening while injured). So my odds are pretty good, but every match I has been won in 3 sets. Which means nothing is a guarantee.
Without further ado, i will post the link for the draw:
DRAW
Last weekend Lyngby played a team match against Roedovre Badminton Klub. The match against Roedovre was the first match of the play offs in order to try and go up to the 3rd Division. We are currently in the Denmark Series and finished top of our group in the ground play and now we are playing against the top 4 teams in another group in order to go up. The way it goes is the top team from one group plays the 4th team of the other, then the third, then the second and then the first teams of each group meet. In the end the top two teams with the most points after the playoffs will then move up to the 3rd division.
We had the chance to play the first team match at home. We started great by going up 5-1 with me winning my singles in two straight sets. I thought the team match was in the bag until things started to go wrong. We lost the next 3 matches and let them come back to 5-4. All of a sudden we had a ballgame. We had one ladies doubles left and 3 men’s doubles. We brought the boys in for a little pep talk. It seemed to have worked since the ladies and all the boys won their matches! We took the team match 9-4 and also became the leaders in the play offs.
We have 3 more team matches to go. The next one will be against Humlebaek Badminton Klub on the 27th of February. We look forward to playing since we are a VERY confident team:)
This weeks song of the week is Black Black Heart by David Usher. I always feel compeled to put any Canadian artist whenever I can think of it. David Usher used to be in a band called Moist back in the days. They were a rockin band when I was in High School and it always brings back some good memories listening to him sing. Not too sure how popular he or his band got outside of Canada, so if you have not heard this song……..I hope you enjoy it:)
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Stephan vs Chen Jin
