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1st WORLD DEAF BADMINTON CHAMPIONSHIPS MEN&WOMEN, SOFIA 20-28.10.2003
The first ever World Deaf Badminton Championship were held in Winter Palace of Sports, Sofia, Bulgaria from 20 to 28 October 2003.
Ranking of players
| Men's Singles | Women's Singles | Men's Doubles | Women's Doubles | Mixed Doubles |
Draws & Results Groups |
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Main Draw - Results Men's Singles |
Europe v Asia
The special match between the European and Asian took place on the final day of 1st World Deaf Badminton Championship. Asian team can only manage to raise players from India, Korea and Kazakhstan where the European team have more players to choose because of the number of countries. Both continents have their own “Team Captain” to make their own selection.
The team consisted of 6 men’s singles, 6 ladies’ singles, 3 men’s doubles, 3 ladies’ doubles and 6 mixed doubles.
In the men’s singles it was levelled 3 –3 as Rajeev Bagga who unbelievably managed to defeat Jannich Andersen again in hard match. The rest of the singles matches were good game too.
The no.1 ladies’ singles match was played by the same players who reached the Championship final by Sun Hya Jeong and Kristina Dovydityte. Both players fought hard in the good spirit for their own continents. Yet Jeong won again after an interesting tough match.
I enjoyed to have watched two matches, the no.1 men’s doubles, no. 1 ladies doubles and no.1 mixed doubles. These three games showed everyone especially the officials from Bulgarian Badminton Federation how high the standard were, probably as high as the full International badminton world! This was important to show the quality of sport by the elite deaf athletes. See the results.
I would like to say well done to the President Schulieman of Nigerian Deaf Sports Federation who managed to come to Sofia on his own in spite of passport visa problem in Lagos. The players and a coach spent several days at Lagos airport trying to obtain their transits visa which has failed. It was a great shame but I do hope they will make the trip to Melbourne in 2005.
Finally, I would like to say a BIG ‘Blagodaria’ (Thank you in Bulgarian) to Bulgarian Badminton Federation, Bulgarian Deaf Sports Federation, Interpreters, all athletes and officials for their fantastic supports throughout the Championship. A special “thank you” to Nanko Chorchopov (tournament referee) and Boriana Stoynova (match controller) who have worked very hard and co-operated with me brilliantly.
Please look out for future badminton news on the CISS website with regards to the 2nd World Championship once the CISS have approved the bidder, hopefully by end of this year.
Report 27th October 2003
Photos - Finals 27.10.2003
Rajeev Bagga Rajeev Bagga
Final MXD Dovidaitis/Dovidityte LTU - Karpov/Vasilyeva RUS
Champions in MD Woo/Sin KOR
MS Final Bagga IND - Andersen DEN
WD Final Jeong/Bak KOR - Dovidityte/Novik LTU
Tournament Management: Puzant Kassabian, Colin McDonald, Nikola Nikolov and Martin BogardFinals
The championship finals and 3rd/4th places were played at the same time, some of the matches were excellent and really enjoyable to watch.
The Mixed Doubles was again in fantastic performance by the Russians (Artemi Karpov and Galina Vasilyeva) and the Lithuanian’ brother and sister (Tomas Dovydaitis and Kristina Dovydityte). It was another tight match as all four players played in very high level and when they reached 14 in all in the final set. The tiebreak of three points was unbelievable tension before the Lithuanians won 17-16. It was too much for both Lithuanian and Russian coaches and officials as they could not bear to watch!! It will be a match to remember.
The Men’s Singles
The formidable player, Rajeev Bagga was unwell before the match but he was very positive and determined not to let himself down. In the first set, Jannich Andersen played the attacking game, which gave Bagga some pressures and Andersen won it. But Bagga refused to give up and played superbly with some lovely rallies a mixture of attack and drop shots, which has claimed him the second set. This has put Andersen under pressure in the final set and he has some disputes with the umpire over the speed of shuttlecocks. Once this has been resolved, Bagga began to control the game better and began to fight extremely hard to complete the match. The score was 11-15, 15-7, 15-10. Both players have involved in many international Open tournaments in many different countries.
Seon-Hwa Jeong of Korea, the champion of Asia & Pacific ladies singles and Kristina Dovydityte of Lithuania who won the European in the same event. It was the first time they have played each other and the first two sets were “one way traffic” but in the final set was thriller. Both players played a lot of attacks and defensive shots. Jeong was a calmer player with some neat and clever shots, which gave Dovydityte some pressure. The score was levelled at the most of time. But in the end, in the very final points they played excellent badminton and the Korean won 11-6, 4-11, 13-12.
The Korean pair, Sin and Woo were too strong for the Russian pair Karpov and Kulakov as they could not cope the attacks shots from the beginning to the end. The game did not last long. The Koreans won 15-4, 15-3.
The only player who has reached three finals was Kristina Dovydityte and she is partnered with Jevgenija Novik of Lithuania. But the Koreans have proved to be a better pair and won the match in straight sets 15-9, 15-9.
Report 26th October 2003
Photos 26.10.2003
MS Semi-final 1 Rubas CZE - Bagga IND
MS Semi-final 2 Andersen DEN - Woo KOR
WS Semi-final 1 Jeong KOR - Bak KOR
WS Semi-final 2 Dovidityte LTU - Gurina RUS
MD Semi-final 1 Sin/Woo KOR - Dovidaitis/Jankus LTU
MD Semi-final 2Karpov/Kulakov RUS - Andersen/Sondergaard DEN
WD Semifinal 1 Jeong/Bak KOR - Cicala/Bula SUI
WD Semifinal 2 Dovidityte/Novik LTU - Brunner/Perrollaz
MXD Semi-final 1 Dovidaitis/Dovidityte LTU - Jeong/Sin KOR
MXD Semi-final 2 Karpov/Vasilyeva RUS - Woo/Bak KOR
Mixed doubles semi-finals
First semi-final was played by Lithuania’s brother and sister Tomas Dovydaitis and Kristina Dovydityte against the Korean pair Woo & Bak. Tomas and Kristina played their attacking game from start to end left the Koreans in daze state and the game was over quite quickly. The score was 15-1, 15-1.
In the other semi-final, the match was between Karpov and Vasilyeva against another stiffer Koren pairs Sin and Hwa. In the first set, the Korean won easily, which presumably the Russian pair was not in the right frame of mind. Karpov seemed to be very unpleased with and I noticed that he said to Vasilyeva that they must fight for it. The second set began much more competitive as both pairs fought for point to point. The Russians played many clever and neat shots to avoid the Koreans to attack. The Russian won the second set and in the final set was absolutely thrilled as they played lovely high standard of badminton. When the score has reached 14 in all and it took about 15 minutes before the Russian finally won 17-16. It was the best mixed doubles match of the Championship so far.
In men’s singles, the first semi-final World’s best deaf player, Rajeev Bagga of India and Josef Rubas of Czech Republic. Rajeev is the Deaf Badminton ambassador who has unbeaten in singles since 1989 Deaflympics (formerly World Deaf Games) in New Zealand as a newcomer. Rubas is an excellent player, unknown to most of us but Bagga controlled the game from the beginning to the end. The score was 15/4 15/6.
The second semi-final, Jannich Andersen another international standard player from Denmark against a fantastic young player Woo, aged 15 from Korea who earlier beat his fellow country player Sin who is no. 1 of Korea. He is one of the biggest surprise players of the championship. Woo gave Andersen a surprisely frighten at the beginning of the first set but he has overcome it and managed to wrap it up and won this set. In the second set Andersen’s experience has proved too much for Woo. The result was 15/8 15/0.
The rest of the semi-finals matches, the men’s doubles and ladies doubles have played. In the men’s doubles, the match between Denmark pair, Andersen and Sondergaard against the Russians, Karpov and Kulakov. It was a tight match but the Russian managed to prevent to concede the second set and won it. See the results.Photos 24.10.2003
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11Report 24.10.2003
The best match so far was the men’s singles in the 1/8th final between Josef Rubas of Czech Republic and Artemi Karpov of Russia. The match was lasted 1 hour 20 minutes with excellent rallies, both players fought extremely hard and refused to give up, especially Josef who was injured. The match was absolutely tension, probably too much for both countries’ supporters to bear and the match was finally won by Josef 15/5, 11/15, 17/16.
Photos 1 2
There were other good hard singles matches involving Koreans and Russians, see the results.Photos 23.10.2003
Bulgaria Czech Republic Denmark Great Britain India Ireland Kazakhstan
Korea Lithuania Netherlands Nigeria Russia Switzerland Turkey
The Refferee's Table
1 2 3Photos 20.10.2003
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Opening ceremony
1 2Here is the history of Deaf International badminton.
The first ever International Badminton friendly match was between England and Denmark, I believe, in the 60’s. They were still doing this every two years for some years until when the badminton was finally accepted by the CISS to be included in the Deaflympics (formerly World Games for the Deaf) in Los Angeles in 1985 where nine countries took part. Since this the number of countries has grown steadily in every Deaflympics.
The European Badminton Championship was finally formed in Manchester, England in 1990 and it has been held every four years under EDSO (European Deaf Sports Organisation).
The standard of many players are incredible high, some of them are officially members of their own national teams. Rajeev Bagga of India, who once ranked 36 in the World, he also took part in the All England Open Championship few times and Jannich Andersen of Denmark is currently member of Danish national squad, involving a lot of international Open tournaments. Jannich became the EDSO Men’s Singles Champion when he was 14 years old and Kristina Dovydityte of Lithuania of Ladies Singles as 12 years old!
Last December Asia & Pacific Deaf Sports Organisation formed their first ever Badminton Championship in Kuala Lumpur. There were new faces players from Indonesia and other Asia countries.
I will report & update the competition daily with some photos attached, which will begin on 20th October.
Martin Bogard
TD Badminton
