Suetsuna and Maeda lose in badminton doubles semis

Wednesday 13th August, 05:15 PM JST

BEIJING —

Japanese badminton pair Satoko Suetsuna and Miyuki Maeda fell short in their bid to reach the final of the women’s doubles at the Beijing Olympic Games, going down to South Korea’s Lee Kyung Won and Lee Hyo Jung in the semifinals on Wednesday.

Suetsuna and Maeda, the world’s No. 8 pair who upset China’s defending Olympic champions Yang Wei and Zhang Jiewen in the quarterfinals, came within one point of taking the first game but allowed the fourth-ranked South Koreans to win the next four points and go on to win 22-20, 21-15. The result at Beijing University of Technology Gymnasium put Suetsuna and Maeda in the bronze medal match to be played on Friday, when they aim to become the first Japanese medalists in badminton since the sport was added to the Olympic program at the 1992 Barcelona Games.

Kyodo

7 Comments

rajakumar at 05:34 PM JST - 13th August

It very good that japan and korea taking badminton sport to top levels.

Badminton is good sport for Japan ,Korea and USA.

It is like tennis but requires more flexibility of body in movements.

It is more artistic/brainy especially with its drop shots and trick shots, in the singles badminton games.

Wonder when we can get team badminton USA to top positions like team denmark/china/indonesia/malaysia/others ?
TheCode at 05:48 PM JST - 13th August

I saw this match and it was a hard-fought battle by Maeda and Suetsuna. I was really disappointed by the South Koreans and how many times they complained to the officials. It seems that the officials were issuing several penalties for the way they were serving (in badminton, you are supposed to drop the birdie and then hit it, but it looks as if one of the Korean ladies was tossing it before hitting it). There were even a few points that they complained about, since they thought the birdie landed outside the box, rather than inside for a point.

It got to the point where they were taking so much time to complain (one of them even had the gall to stop and take time to untie her shoe, take it off, check to see if her foot was okay, then put it on, just before match point), that the crowd started booing them and cheering more for the Japanese pair; all for naught. I ended up being deeply impressed with Maeda's and Suetsuna's humility in that they didn't once complain or pout about their defeat in the end.
smithinjapan at 06:30 PM JST - 13th August

The Korean men also beat the Japanese men, albeit it was slightly closer than in the women's games. I'm not a huge badminton fan, but since they were broadcasting NOTHING else except this, some 'highlights' (of Japanese athletes, of course), and a few swim trials, I watched it. It was a good game with some wicked rallies, but in the end the Koreans outplayed the Japanese.
smithinjapan at 06:34 PM JST - 13th August

TheCode: Bogus! The game was entirely fair and square, and I hardly noticed the Koreans complaining at all (are we talking about the women's game, here?). What I DID see was the Japanese team let a number of birdies fall in the court when they assumed they were out. What's more, YES, MORE people were cheering for Japan, but that's because there were more Japanese in the stands, plain and simple...

It was a great game, but the Koreans won fair and square. I think the Japanese did extremely well in the game against the Chinese, and they did here, too (again, there were some WICKED rallies!), but in the end only one team could get through.
presto345 at 07:08 PM JST - 13th August

The game was entirely fair and square, and I hardly noticed the Koreans complaining at all

The Koreans complained and interrupted the game at least 4 times. The Japanese girls let it all pass. I watched it all and Lee (the short one) is notorious for this behavior and attempting to set the pace of matches at international events. Not only she, it's a national 'sport' to do anything you can barely within the rules to disrupt the opponents play. Now that is sport Korean style. Fair and square? Hardly.
TheCode at 11:34 PM JST - 13th August

The game was entirely fair and square, and I hardly noticed the Koreans complaining at all

Sorry smithinjapan, I think we must be talking about different matches. I was talking about the semifinal women's match between Maeda/Suetsuna and Lee/Lee. In that match, the shorter Lee complained a number of times because the judge had overruled her serve. It seems that she was serving in an illegal way, but she didn't think so.

Thanks presto345. I'm glad that we were seeing the same match. I couldn't believe it that at one time, the shorter Lee even left the court and started to approach the scorer's table, where one of her coaches was even trying to complain. From what I know, it is not allowed to approach the scorer's table when a match is in progress. It was even clear that when it became match point, that the shorter Lee went to the sidelines and took off her shoe, and casually took a look at her foot (I don't know why) before going back into the game. Why would she do that when it was already match point and the match in hand? I thought that was terrible gamesmanship on the part of her. At least the taller Lee was nice enough to constantly indicate to her to "Let it go already and just play".
some14some at 11:58 PM JST - 13th August

ofcourse game was entirely fair and square though there were few interruptions as Korean team wanted to make sure that they were not treated unfairly.