Malaysia Boleh!

Melbourne 2006 XVIII Commonwealth Games

Malaysia Boleh!

21 March 2006

Report by Adelina Ong, on Monday 20 March, 2006

Malaysia has finally done it! They have won the illusive gold medal in the mixed teams competition at the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games.

 

History has been made. For the first time in the Commonwealth Games, England has failed to win this event and Malaysia has won its biggest accolade in mixed teams competitions. Despite being seeded No.1 coming into this event, not everyone was convinced that the Malaysians would take home the gold given that its women have always been the weakest link in such events.

 

The closest Malaysia had ever got to a sniff of a medal at the Games was in Manchester in 2002 when they played England for a place in the semi-finals. A very young and inexperienced Wong Mew Choo then did the unthinkable to upset English player, Julia Mann to give Malaysia a chance but unfortunately, both the men’s and women’s doubles lost their matches and Malaysia came home empty handed in that event.

 

Since then, the Malaysian women have worked hard to raise their standard of play and their efforts have borne fruit with Wong now able to play competitively against the top players of the world, herself becoming one of them, registering an impressive world ranking of No.12. The quality of Malaysian women’s doubles players also continued to improve, with their current top pair, Wong Pei Tty and Chin Eei Hui achieving great results internationally to be now ranked as the sixth best pair in the world. As a result of this improvement, Malaysia wore the favourites tag coming into this event and today was Malaysia’s moment of truth.

 

The first two matches between these two badminton giants went as predicted. World No.1 mixed doubles pair of Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms gave England the ideal start when they trounced Wong Choong Han and Ooi Sock Ai, 21-15, 21-12. Lee Chong Wei then evened things up for Malaysia when he methodically defeated Aamir Ghaffar 21-8, 21-8.

 

Next, the match everyone was waiting for finally arrived. It was the women’s singles between Wong Mew Choo of Malaysia against Tracey Hallam of England. This match was very important for Malaysia. Winning this match would certainly give them an edge to wrap up the tie at the end of the men’s doubles without having to rely on the more risky women’s doubles match which on paper, favoured England slightly. This match between the world No.10 Hallam and No.12 Wong also offered the excited badminton fans a sneak preview of what could potentially be the final of the women’s singles event between its top two seeds. The highly anticipated battle lived up to all its hype. Describing the match as “close” would be an understatement as both players fought point for point, leaving their respective supporters gripping the very edge of their seats for dear life.

 

The first set was a tight affair until Wong pulled away at 19-16. Hallam then snatched up four points in a row to hold a set point. Wong then leveled at 20-20 at which point spectators started holding their breath as these two players took turns in holding one match point after another before Hallam cracked first under pressure to surrender the first set, 25-27.

In the second, Hallam was the first to create a gap at 19-14 before Wong slowly but surely fought her way back into the game to force deuce. Hallam held her nerve this time, winning 22-20 to take the match into three sets. It was an extremely tight third set with both players hardly making any errors and often long rallies followed before a point was won, the longest one was recorded at 30 strokes in 32 seconds of play.

 

Both players were neck and neck giving the spectators no indication who would be the likely victor. What they could see though was Wong’s hands shaking as she served for the match at 20-18. A long rally followed with the crowd gasping each time they thought a shot was not retrievable only to see the players going for that extra stretch to keep the game in play. It was Wong that finally threw her racquet up in the air and screamed in delight when Hallam returned her smash into the net to give her the game and the match! “I think she’s a better player so all I wanted to do was fight all the way to the end,” exclaimed the overjoyed Wong afterwards. “There were times I thought I might lose but I know my team mates were counting on me, so I kept at it, never giving up,” said Wong emotionally.

 

It was then down to Chan Chong Ming and Koo Kien Keat to strike that historical home run. On the other side, Anthony Clark and Robert Blair knew it was up to them to keep England’s gold medal hopes alive. They fought, attacked and dived all over the court to try and out-maneuver the Malaysians but unfortunately for them, Chan and Koo were in fine form tonight. Anything the English threw at them, they hit back harder, stronger and better. The Malaysians were never truly in trouble, carving out a 21-14, 21-14 win to send the Malaysian supporters soaring into a state of frenzy and the English fans sighing for what could have been.