All-England Championship “Exclusive as ever”
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from March 1982.
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The emergence of the Chinese following the amalgamation of the International Badminton Federation with the breakaway World Badminton Federation last year has made it tougher at the top. But despite the improvement in quality, most of the leading seeds were well-treated in the draw. Koppen, the 28-year-old Copenhagen dentist who will attempt to regain the title she won in 1979 and 1980, was perhaps the unluckiest.
The second seed, she plays top English National Champion Jane Webster, whom she has beaten in three previous matches at this event. "You have to play someone so it might as well be Lene." the English lefthander said. "I always seem to play her in the All-England." Otherwise, the draw was kind for Koppen, top seeded Zhang Ailing of China, the Masters and World Cup champion, and Sunai Hwang of South Korea, who blasted Koppen 11-1 11-2 in last year's final, are both in the opposite half of the event. Zhang opens against Dorte Kjaer of Denmark while Hwang, who is seeded only fourth because she missed several events through injury this season, takes on English teenager Gillian Gowers in her opening match. Neither should have trouble.
The third seed is Li Lingwei of China and her first opponent is Atsuko Tokuda of Japan, a former All-England doubles winner.
Of the other women's seeds, number seven Verawaty Wiharjo of Indonesia has perhaps the most testing start, against Zhang Lili of China.
The Chinese have three seeds in the women's event and four in the men's where Masters champion Luan Jin heads a strong challenge for the title held by Liem Swie King of Indonesia. Triple champion Liem is also seeded fourth, largely largely because he has played in only two events since last year's All-England. "We think the Indonesians should play in more tournaments. Perhaps this will make them think about it," a spokesman for the organisers said.
Liem, nevertheless, should progress easily to the quarterfinals where he should meet tall Chinese Chen Changjie, who won the World Games title last August. The top seed is tall, slender Dane Morten Frost, who may finally accede to the title after slowly but surely working his way up the rankings in recent years.
He has an intriguing quarter-final in prospect against Speedy Chinese Han Jian, the fifth seed. The second seed is 1980 champion Prakash Paudukone who broke Liem's sequence with an upset in the final of that year, a loss which the Indonesia avenged in last year's final.
The Indian stylist faces a second round match against highly-rated Englishman Kevin Jolly but should get through to a quarter-final against the eighth seed, Chen Tianglung of China. Luan first plays a qualifier.
Despite the apparent increase in quality, the organisers have no plans for increasing the draw beyond the present 64 in the men's and 48 in the women's singles. "We don't regard that as a positive step", press spokesman Nick Budibent said.
"Apart from the impossibility of getting through a bigger event in the time we have, we want the tournament to keep being exclusive. It should be difficult to get into, and it is."
