Hopes on Thomas to Land Shuttle Gold

THE badminton players get into action this morning in the singles individual event at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre at Albert Park and Thomas Teh Cheang Hock will lead the charge.

Thomas, the son of former victorious Thomas Cup captain of 1966, Teh Kew San, is the Malaysian badminton contingent’s brightest hope to win medals among the four players here.

The other three are Yeo Kok Fang, Wu Wai Loon and Koh Fook Soong.

The Malaysian shuttlers will only be competing in the singles and doubles individual events, as the team event requires women players and Malaysia are here with only four men.

The men’s singles event starts off today with a round-robin format where the 64 players are grouped in four players into 16 groups.

The champion of each group proceeds to the next round which is the a knockout stage which leads to the quater-finals.

Thomas, who won three bronze medals at the last Games in Rome in the singles, doubles and team, has been slotted in the third seed group.

He will have for company, Mongolia’s Jargaisaikhan Purev, China’s Wencong Niu and Pakistan’s Ashfaq Haider.

Team coach S. Sambenthan said Thomas should not have any problems topping the group and advancing to the quarter-finals.

“It is the quarter-finals which will be crucial where he is expected to meet South Korea’s Soo Woo,” said the Selangor Badminton Association panel of coaches.

“I watched Soo Woo in action in the team event yesterday (Friday) and he looked good. Besides, he is the silver medallist at the last Games.”

Thomas had complained of tight thigh muscles during training here but Sambenthan said with treatment from the two physiotherapists here from the National Sports Institute, he felt better.

Thomas will be playing two matches today starting with Purev at 3pm (noon Malaysian time) and Wencong at 4.30pm (1.30pm).

His third round-robin match against Ashfaq will be on Tuesday morning, which will be followed by the knockout match in the afternoon.

In the doubles, Thomas will be partnering Wai Loon and have been seeded second and have received a first round bye in the knockout format.

They play their doubles second round knockout match on Wednesday.

Wai Loon, on the other hand, has been grouped in the 11th seed group and have for company India’s Rohit Bhaker, Marcel Mueller (Switzerland) and Jonathan Amuah (Ghana).

Kok Fang has been grouped in the top half of the draw in the 14 seed group together with Japan’s Tomotuni Kobori, Jun Xu (China) and Roni Mansur (Indonesia).

Fook Soong on the other hand is in the lower half of the draw in the 15th seed group and has Sandeep Dhillon (India), Raphael De Goulard (France) and Ivan Antov (Bulgaria) for company.

India’s Ranjeev Bagga is the top seed. He was named one of the Deaflympics of the Century for his achievements of being ranked the top ranked deaf badminton player and who has collected 12 gold medals at four Deaflympics since 1989.

Known as the “Wrist of Fury”, he won his national in 1992-1993 and has been ranked as high as 36th in the world.

Meanwhile, the unseasonal cold weather did not deter over 200 fans from watching the football at Green Gully Reserve where Iraq defeated Saudi Arabia and Germany had a win over the Czech Republic.

Over at the AMF Centre in Sunshine, it was the first round of the women’s singles in the Tenpin Bowling. Competition looks tight with Linda Decker of the United States, Benedetta Fodera of Italy and Young Sook Cho of South Korea at the top of the ladder.

The organisers have released an additional 300 tickets per day at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre to keep up with the demand by spectators.

With so many sports on show, including table tennis, badminton, handball and basketball, MSAC is the most popular Deaflympics venue.