Game marred by bad umpiring

ALLOW me to refer to your Sport news item under the headline “BWF to look into complaints of bad umpiring” (The Star, Nov 19).

As an ardent Malaysian badminton fan and a keen player, I could not agree more with your paper’s stand that poor umpiring by the umpire from China had marred the game.

Furthermore, “The BWF rules prevent a court official from umpiring any match involving players from his or her country.”

It was especially frustrating to see the umpire turning down the two Japanese players’ repeated challenge to the line call when the score stood at 21-20 in China’s favour, eventually and conveniently making it possible for the Chinese pair to play the third game. Had the line call been overturned, the Japanese pair could have won with two straight games.

However, the Japanese players’ cool and collected composure would have earned them much respect from television viewers all over the world as the prejudice was so obvious that the match commentator even branded it “ridiculous as that was a Super Series Premiere event.”

Winning is not everything. The players from China won the game but they have lost the respect of all.