With heighten kiasu-ism, we decided to come early on sunday so to get better seats to better support Lee C.W... As the matches were to be started at 12pm, we decided to leave our dorm at 9am and try to get ahead of the crowd..
Little that we expect, there was already a queue forming when we reached the gymnasium around 9:45am!! It was very sunny and hot and we had no choice but to join the queue.. At the same time, we saw droves of people passing us by and went to the direction of the entrance.. so Jascee went to check it out.. it turned out that a long queue has already been formed to enter the stadium!! So Chua went to that queue, while the two girls stayed in the current one to get tickets..
Around 10 mins passed 10am, I noticed that the queue we were in wasn't moving and yet there are people walking passed us with tickets.. After talking a closer look, we realised to our dismay that we were queuing at the wrong queue!!! :o The queue we were in was to enter the gymnasium for the Arena Seats!! :o :o We quickly went over to the counter and bought our tickets.. Aiy.. stupid dumb dumb.. :D
After getting the tickets we went to look for Chua in the other queue.. There were at least 250 people in front of us in the queue.. :( There were lots of kids, either school kids in their school badminton t'shirts or kids with their parents.. I didn't know that badminton was such a popular sport in Japan.. but come to think of it, the population of Tokyo is about 16 million, so even if just 0.1% attend this tournament, it would be about 16,000 people!! Again, it was another 3,500yen for the admission..
We were allowed into the gymnasium around 10:30am.. Luckily we did manage to get a row of 7 seats in the middle section facing court no.4, which was the only court to be used for this finals.. Jascee had a HK friend who has player pass, so she was waiting for him outside the gymnasium to bring her in without the need to buy ticket.. So the two of us had to put things on the seats to 'book' them.. I think my seat was F-8-40... There was at least a 1.5 hours wait before the tournament starts, and luckily on the courts there were some exhibition matches going on.. There were 6 singles star players and 2 doubles star teams (men and women) playing against Japanese school champions of various ages.. the youngest being 7 years old.. :) Most of the star players were Japanese national players, with the exception of Lin Dan, Zhang Ning, Simon Santoso and Sony Kuncoro.. It was very good exposure and encouragement for the young Japanese players..
Time passed easier with something to occupy one's attention.. soon it was 12pm and the matches started.. First was the mixed doubles.. It was between Zheng Bo-Gao Ling (Ch) vs Nova Widianto-Lilyana Natsir (ID). It was an exciting game.. The Chinese pair was somehow struggling to get their rhythm and unfortunately the Indonesia teams wasn't capitalising that.. In the end, experience and mental toughness prevails and the Chinese pair managed to beat the Indonesians slightly more convincingly in the 2nd game after playing neck-to-neck in the first game..
Then it was the match that all of us were waiting for.. :) So coincidently, there were 2 Indonesians sitting one row in front of us!! So it was very interesting to see how we will behave.. But I think this being Japan, the 'hostility' or competitiveness/patriotism will not be acted on so much if this was in Malaysia or Indonesia.. Riot police would have to be called in, i think, in those 2 countries.. :p
As with yesterday, Aishah brought the Malaysian flag... We held on to the flag through-out the match.. It was the first time I was holding on to the Jalur Gemilang and waved it during any matches.. There were pockets of Malaysians among the crowd but not as many as there were Indonesians.. Think in the whole gymnasium, there were about 3 or 4 Jalur Gemilang being waved.. Not too bad.. :)
Lee was playing a good game, getting the shuttle across and waiting for Taufik to make mistake, which Taufik did.. Lee won the first game amidst struggling point-by-point. Then Taufik fought back and took the 2nd game.. Lee seems to always 'stuck' at point 15 or 16 and always allow Taufik to catch up and even the score, even though Taufik was 5 or 6 points behind.. Knowing that mental strength was never the forte of Malaysian players, I dreaded that Lee might just self-destruct when the pressure is on.. It was really agonizing to watch Lee throwing away a 4-point lead and allowing Taufik to get 5 points consecutively to even the scores to 19-19 in the 3rd game.. Everyone of us were on the edge of our seats, praying hard that Lee would just hang on, cross that final hurdle and not stumble when victory was so near.. When he finally got that last point, everyone of us just jumped up and cheered! :D :D Okay, I was the last to jump up cos I was very self-conscious of blocking the people seated behind up.. :p
The award ceremony was held immediately after the match.. As my camera's zoom was not good, I couldn't get any good photos of the podium, so I took the photo of the giant screen that was at the two ends of the stadium.. USD16,000 for a 5-day playing, not bad.... :)
Next was the Women's Singles between Tine Rasmussen (Den) and Xie Xingfang (Chn). Xie has been the runners-up in the 2006, 2005 and 2003's Japan Open and unfortunately she was unable to break that 'jinx' this year.. Tine was playing very well and she totally controlled the court.. Her cross-court smashes and cross-court drops kept Xie wrong-footed most of the time.. Xie has no answers to counter Tine's complete court dominance.. During the 1st game, Tine even took 8 points consecutively.. Xie was unable to play her game at all.. Tine won in under 40 minutes to break China's monopoly of the women's singles title since 2005.
I was dreading the women's doubles match, actually.. Being an all China affair, I was expecting a cautious unexciting match, but luckily I was wrong.. :) The 3rd seed team of Yang Wei and Zhang Jiewen was clearly the better pair.. The other pair of Zhao Tingting and Yu Yang, seeded 7 in the tournament put up a fight in the 1st game, but was stuck at zero point until they broke the egg at 11-1 in the 2nd game.. The more experienced pair took exactly 35 minutes to dispatch off their younger compatriots..
The finale was the Men's Doubles... was looking forward to this match.. Always a delight to watch Wijaya and Gunawan play.. They are equally good in both defending and attacking.. Although there are a couple of long rallies where the smashes and returns between the teams were fast and furious, Wijaya and Gunawan won the match in under 30 minutes.. The two of them were very emotional when they won the match, knowing that this win will bring them closer to qualify for next year's Olympics.. Wijaya started signing autographs for the fans in the arena seats even before the award ceremony.. :) The two of them was clearly the crowd's favourite of the day...
Some of the crowd started leaving once the last point was won, but we stayed on.. we even went to the merchandising section to take a look at the merchandise on offer.. boy, are they expensive!! A simple polo t'shirt with the Yonex logo cost at least 3,200yen while the most expensive is the winter jacket priced at 12,800yen!! :o :o Of course I didn't get anything.. wanted to get a t'shirt but it seems that everything on sale was way out of my budget range of 3,000yen.. :(
Overall, it was an exciting way to spend the weekend, although I must say I was very tired after those 2 days.. me not getting any younger... Furthermore, it was sorta expensive but it was worth it as the feel of watching the matches live is definitely different from watching them on tv... ;)
More photos of Yonex Japan Open 2007
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