All England Fist Fight!

Under the 21 point scoring system, things move a lot faster. Players cannot afford to make silly mistakes because they immediately lose a point to their opponents. Then during the 11-point intervals, coaches walk up to the players to give suggestions - what to do and what not to do, and motivations. All of these things must be adding tension and drama to the badminton game.

So much so that in the just concluded super-series event in Korea, we have witnessed a finalist throwing a racket at the opponent's coach for stepping in the middle of a bad line judgment. It is a well-known fact in the international badminton community that Korea plays dirty with the umpiring decisions. There have been instances where players prefer to boycott the competitions by not playing there. Or just walk out in the middle of the game.

Is there a solution to the problem of bad line calls and umpiring? What about using computer systems like the Hawk-Eye? Well, even this may not be 100% accurate. Nonetheless, as technology improves, we may be seeing more of this equipment being used in tournaments.

Actually, things not only move faster under the 21-point scoring system in badminton. It can get pretty violent. Look at the pictures below- seeing is believing.

Danish player, Kenneth Jonassen, throwing a fist at world number one Chinese player, Lin Dan, before he can throw his racket at him.

Lin Dan falls but wins the match convincingly, 21-17, 21-11.

Good links

For scoreboard results and tournament schedule, visit tournamentsoftware site. You may find my name there as well .

If you like to watch the ongoing tournaments, you can download the online streaming programs from PPMate, TVAnts, Sopcast, TVUPlayer or PPLive (you can find them here). If you are willing to pay money, there is a website dedicated to badminton games called PlanetBadminton.

Last but not least, if you are a diehard badminton fan, do visit the badmintoncentral website (see link on sidebar). It is the best source of badminton information found on the planet. I found the above pictures there.