New Zealand's Badminton Domination Over Australia Set To Be Severely Tested

New Zealand’s domination over Australia in badminton in the past 10 years will come under the microscope in Invercargill as a series of major international events are held in the city over the next 12 days.

Starting tomorrow (Friday) are the Thomas & Uber Cup preliminaries, Oceania Zone featuring New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, New Caledonia and Tahiti in the men’s Thomas Cup. The women’s competition or Uber Cup will have four nations; New Zealand, Australia, Fiji and New Caledonia.

Each country will be aiming to win the coveted position to represent the region at the Thomas and Uber Cups finals to be held in May at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The Thomas and Uber Cups are three singles and two doubles matches per clash.

New Zealand won the last two encounters in Thomas Cup against Australia, but is putting forward a younger and less experienced team than their trans-Tasman counterparts. Australia has targeted the tournament by bringing back Stuart Gomez, Stuart Brehaut and Ross Smith from retirement and now has the benefit of Raj Veeran who has recently gained citizenship in Australia from his home of Malaysia.

In the Uber Cup New Zealand is seeded first based on rankings and past performances. Australia has again brought back some players from retirement and have a significantly stronger team than in 2008. Player’s of note are Chi Chia Huang, winner of the NZ Open Grand Prix women’s singles in 2006 and also the national squad singles coach. Kate Wilson-Smith, an experienced doubles player and Olympian. Renuga Veeran, like her brother has now gained her citizenship in Australia will be a huge asset to the team.

The Kiwi teams are missing former world champs medalist Dan Shirley as well as former top-30 ranked Rachel Hindley, but do have the talent of North Harbour’s Jessica Jonggowisastro as well as Michelle Chan(Auckland) and the highly regarded women’s doubles pair of Donna Haliday(Auckland) and Waitakere’s Danielle Barry. Southland’s Anna Rankin is also in the Uber Cup team.

The men’s side features Joe Wu(Waikato) as the top singles player while Henry Tam(Auckland) and Oliver Leydon-Davis(Waikato) are the likely Thomas Cup men’s doubles due. Kevin Dennerly-Minturn(Auckland) and James Eunson(Southland) make up the rest of the side.

The Thomas Cup team will face New Caledonia at 9am Friday at Stadium Southland and then Fiji from 7pm at the same venue. The Kiwi Uber Cup side plays Fiji at 9am and New Caledonia at 7pm.

The much anticipated contests with Australia will be played on Saturday.

The New Zealand and Australian teams will most likely meet in the Oceania Team Championship finals as well where there are a total of five combined matches – men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and a mixed. The Oceania Teams Champs have valuable ranking points on the line for this years Commonwealth Games.

Aside from the Thomas and Uber Cup qualifying, players are also aiming for good performances in the Oceania Teams Championship which will be run on Sunday and Monday and also the Oceania Junior Champs as well as the Oceania Individual Championships which will start in the middle of next week and are imperative for Kiwi athletes to impress for Commonwealth Games places. At present the mixed team of Haliday and Tam and the women’s doubles combination of Haliday and Barry are the leading contenders for spots in New Delhi.

Events Schedule (all at Stadium Southland):

Oceania Team Championships - Robson Shield - 21-22 February
Oceania Championships and Oceania Junior Championships - 24-27 February

New Zealand Teams For Thomas & Uber Cup

Women:
Danielle Barry (Waitakere)
Michelle Chan (Auckland
Donna Haliday (Auckland)
Jessica Jonggowisastro (North Harbour)
Anna Rankin (Southland)

Men:
Kevin Dennerly-Minturn (Auckland)
James Eunson (Southland)
Oliver Leydon-Davis (Waikato)
Henry Tam (Auckland)
Joe Wu (Waikato)

Manager - Andrew Haliday