KOREA SUMMER CHAMPS – Lee Yong Dae Takes Back Title

– July 4, 2009Posted in: News

Childhood teammates Lee Yong Dae and Cho Gun Woo (pictured) were back playing as a pair in the historic city of Andong this week and together they fought off the challenge from the troublesome veterans Kim Yong Hyun / Kim Sang Soo, who had embarrassed the young stars twice at last October’s National Sports Fest.

Story and Photos: Don Hearn (live in Andong)

The summer championships have recently become the closest thing Korea has to a national badminton championship event. As is always the case at this annual event, players competed both individually and in teams in school level categories with a separate pro division but since 2006, the busy year-end tournament schedule have prevented Korea from holding a true national championship where the top players from every level would compete for just the five titles.

Last year’s event featured a largely under-strength field due to Olympic preparations but the 2009 edition had all the big guns firing and no title was as hotly contested as the men’s doubles. With his regular partner Jung Jae Sung having shifted to the military Sangmu team for domestic competitions, Lee Yong Dae was back playing with his long-time school- and teammate Cho Gun Woo. In fact, it was at the summer championship tournament 10 years ago that Lee won his first national title as he and Cho, then in Grade 5, took the doubles and helped their school to the team title while Lee also won in singles.

Fast-forward to the present and Lee and Cho faced their biggest challenge in the semi-finals where they were up against a pairing of two people who know Lee’s game intimately as Jung Jae Sung was partnering Jung Jung Young, who had won the Asian Junior title with Lee Yong Dae five years ago. The two Jungs came out with guns blazing and stormed to a 21-16 first game victory. If the shuttles continued to streak through the muggy Andong Gymnasium atmosphere, the match itself really slowed down in the second and third games. With no paying spectators and no air conditioning and no line judges, the players were permitted frequent towel-downs and even had to resort to wiping the court themselves on several occasions.

Lee and Cho started to really tighten up their defense in the second and third games and Lee’s pressure play at the net forced some key errors and the two twenty-year-olds pulled out the victory 16-21, 21-14, 21-16. In the final, Lee/Cho never developed much of a margin over Kim/Kim but they still finished it off in two games 21-17, 21-19.

Jang Young Soo may have taken care of Korea’s current boy-wonder Park Sung Hwan in the semi-finals but he was no match for his Kimcheon teammate and former world #1 Lee Hyun Il in the final. Jang had trouble finding the lines while Lee played a cool, consistent game and also came away a 21-17, 21-19 winner. Hwang Hye Youn had little trouble with unheralded Lee So Youn, who had never been on the national team and was playing in her first national singles final. Hwang finished it off 21-14, 21-7, to give Samsung Electromechanics its fourth title of the week, adding to the men’s and women’s pro team titles and the men’s doubles title.

Regular partners Kim Min Jung and Ha Jung Eun faced off in the mixed doubles final, playing with Yoo Yeon Seong and Hwang Ji Man respectively. World #14 Kim/Yoo (pictured above right) won that one easily but Ha later had an equally easy victory in the women’s doubles, playing with Park Sun Young.

Another of Lee Yong Dae’s former partners, Yoo Hyun Young, won two doubles titles in the university division. In the high school division, Eom Hye Won (pictured above) and Choi Young Woo (pictured right) each picked up both their respective singles and doubles titles. Eom and Choi both recorded runner-up finishes at last year’s Asian Junior Championships but this week they are not training with the junior national team in advance of the departure for Kuala Lumpur but their results in Andong have qualified them for national team tryouts, which are being held this week.